


From Darkness to Promote Me

by AllTheBellsInVenice



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Star Trek Into Darkness - Fandom
Genre: Anal Play, Augments, Dark, Dubcon/Noncon, F/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Now with CHASER, Omegaverse, Revenge, Spanking, Star Trek/Sherlock Crossover, Suicidal Thoughts, USS Vengeance - Freeform, Violence, khanolly, yep you read that right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-24 16:47:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1612256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllTheBellsInVenice/pseuds/AllTheBellsInVenice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The murderous Khan is steering the <i>Vengeance</i> into the abyss of space, but not before he abducts a young doctor from the <i>Enterprise</i> for reasons of his own. As they play cat-and-mouse throughout the vast ship, Khan begins to suspect that there may be more to this Molly than he has bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Outbound

Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend  
Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,  
Pondering his Voyage; for no narrow frith  
He had to cross…  
John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

******

His footsteps echoed down the long, dark corridors, their steady sounding the only noise apart from the background hum of the powerful warp engine that was propelling the monstrous starship farther and farther into the uncharted regions of deep space. Khan was the sole commander of his dark leviathan of a ship, and not another waking soul was aboard, save one. 

Her. 

Khan didn’t yet know her name, though during his enforced time in the Medical Bay of the _Enterprise_ he had observed her among the other blue-uniformed crew members as she performed the functions of a doctor. He’d caused a stir when he’d entered the Medical Bay with his detail of security officers, but after a time the usual activities had resumed, uneasily, around his silent presence. And then, the ship’s unwary fool of a chief medical officer had called the young woman over to a nearby display to look at the genetic patterns he’d called up from his sample of Khan’s blood. 

“How extraordinary,” the slight young woman had said after a moment, her voice soft and just barely audible to his keen Augment ears. “Look at the configuration of these nucleotide sequences…elegant.” Her little hand had expertly traveled over the surface of the display, calling up metadata with quick touches. “I’ve never seen such a perfectly ordered genome. I wonder what the gametes are like.” 

“Damn it, I know you’re a reproductive geneticist, not a genetic engineer, but you’re the best I’ve got right now, and I’m not talking about gametes. Look at this...” 

While the fool doctor had blustered on, making wild speculations about Khan’s genetic pattern, Khan had focused his penetrating gaze on the young woman who was listening patiently to his nonsense. A reproductive geneticist, was she. Oh, very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

A little of her scent had drifted over from beyond the muscled lump of a security officer who had interposed his body between Khan and the two doctors. Khan inhaled instinctively, then narrowed his eyes. He’d thought he scented…He took another breath of her. 

...No, Khan had thought, her scent signature was unmistakable. She was just another Beta, beyond any doubt. Every human alive was a Beta in this moribund century, save himself. 

Khan’s lip curled in disgust as he continued to stalk down the long, empty corridors. He still remembered that other day, not long after he’d been awakened, when he’d demanded that Admiral Marcus bring him a selection of Omega females to satisfy the raucous demands of his body. Rage spiked in him as he recalled how Marcus had laughed and told him that there were no longer any Omegas, that both Alpha and Omega traits had been purposely eradicated from the population a century ago. 

“You’re a throwback, Khan,” Marcus had taunted him. “A primitive remnant of an age of savagery. Just use your image display, like I showed you. Maybe you can find some vintage pornography.” 

Khan’s huge hands clenched in the open air. Crushing that bastard’s head only once hadn’t been nearly satisfying enough. 

Though, in retrospect, beaming the reproductive geneticist directly onto the Bridge of the _Vengeance_ immediately after he’d killed Admiral Marcus had not been his best decision. The young doctor had taken one look at what was left of the admiral, glanced at Khan, seen the blood and gray matter still sticking to his hands, and turned to flee silently from the Bridge and hide somewhere in the depths of the enormous ship. In the three days since Khan had taken her from the _Enterprise_ , he had not glimpsed her once. 

Khan had had no time to contend with the fugitive geneticist in those first, crucial hours after he’d set course and punched his prize ship, his malevolent creation, to maximum warp. Aggressive pursuit was inevitable; his ship was faster, but subspace communication was faster still, and it would take time for him to reach the unpopulated regions of space. He’d changed course several times as long-range sensors had warned him of nearby vessels, approaching fast on headings that threatened to intercept the _Vengeance_ ; in all the chaos, he’d all but forgotten about the little Beta. She had surely gone to ground in the meantime, probably huddled in a ball in some part of crew quarters, weeping helplessly no doubt. Still, it would not do to underestimate any foe.

As soon as he was sure he had shaken all pursuit, Khan had left the Bridge, locking the doors behind him with a code. He then personally cleared Engineering with the help of a tricorder, then sealed off the entire area. He doubted the runaway Beta would try to tamper with the propulsion systems, but any such sabotage would be catastrophic, and Khan was taking no chances at this stage. 

A final long corridor, a sealed door, and Khan reached his goal. Arrayed before him on the deck of the hangar bay were the seventy-two immeasurably precious cryotubes he’d beamed aboard the _Vengeance_ before plucking the geneticist from the Medical Bay and, finally, turning his phaser banks on the _Enterprise._ Stopping before the nearest cryotube, Khan ran a white hand over the metallic surface and bent to gaze into the still, frosted face, just visible inside the small window. 

Ah, Juno Zhang Liu-Fang, his sister-in-heart. Juno, who had allied with him early, sharing in his conquest over vast areas of the Earth, just as she had shared in his dominion over the laboratory that their creators had given their Augment children to play in. Even then, Juno had seen that Khan was first among the superior. She had been among the most vocal in support of Khan’s escape plan, and instrumental in obtaining the spaceworthy vessel that had allowed the few remaining Augments to escape the hostile Earth. 

“See you soon, brother,” Juno had said, with that dear twinkle in her green eyes, just as Khan had carefully sealed her inside the cryotube with his own hands, then watched over her as her body settled into hibernation. Soon, soon he would revive Juno, along with the rest, and show them all their new life, the future he had wrested for them out of the clutching hands of Starfleet.

Khan walked for a time among the irregular lines of cryotubes, a solitary figure in the vast dark of the hangar bay. He often leaned over to look into the viewing windows and to touch chill fingertips to the long metal cylinders that had held his only family, forty-two brothers and thirty sisters, for so long. 

Raising his head, Khan inhaled the cool, still air. There, a faint but definite whiff of Beta. She’d been here, that doctor. She’d somehow entered this sealed room, seen the cryotubes, perhaps even touched them, contemplated meddling…

Containing the rage that tightened his chest and shoulders and threatened to red-out his vision, Khan walked calmly to the nearest control display. It was time to deal with this doctor-turned-stowaway, to make her place and position clear. 

“Computer,” Khan said. “Display location of the Beta female aboard.”

“No location found. Please restate parameters.” The crisp electronic voice echoed faintly in the vast hangar bay.

Khan’s face settled into an icy mask. Oh, how he hated this new century. “Display location of the human female.”

“No location found. Please restate parameters.”

Could the geneticist be dead somehow? Hapless accident, or even suicide? “Display all life readings aboard, excluding life readings on the hangar deck.” 

“Seventy-four human life readings aboard. No locations found. System error 7865.”

Khan’s fist impacted the display frame. “Elaborate.” 

“Proprioception subroutine corrupted. Effect is shipwide. Please repair program code.”

Khan took one step back from the display, then leaned in close and manually called up the program code, navigating to the internal sensor array section. After a moment of scanning the lines of code as they flickered past his icy eyes, Khan stood up, twisting his mouth. 

The geneticist had left obvious tracks, but that fact didn’t make her interference any less effective. In an effort to hide her location on the massive starship, she would have needed to individually disable the sensor arrays for life readings, carbon dioxide levels, heat signatures, and half a dozen other internal sensor modes, any one of which he could have used to easily pinpoint her location. Instead, she had reached deeper into the ship’s programming and metaphorically torn out the subroutine through which all internal sensor data was channeled---the part of the program code that defined the data’s point of origin. 

Khan dug further into the code. The _Vengeance_ could still sense the location of anything outside itself, and it could display all internal life readings and other data, right down to the Beta’s use of replicators to access food and water, but it could not tell him _where_ any internal sensor reading was located. It would take a great deal of time to repair the code and correct the vulnerability in the system, and in the meantime, if there were a hull breach, Khan would be forced to locate it solely by the direction of the rushing air. 

A clever move. Khan nodded to himself, grudgingly conceding the first point to the fugitive Beta. Still, Khan held every other card in the little game she had chosen to play. 

“Computer. Open a channel, shipwide.”

When the display glowed green, Khan spoke.

“Doctor. I have discovered your sabotage of the proprioception subroutine. As such, know that I will not tolerate further damage of any kind. You have some value to me alive, but if you so much as disconnect a single cable on my ship, I will not hesitate to remove life support in all locations except my own and find you later by your rotting stench.”

He paused, looking over his shoulder at the cryotubes, before continuing.

“And if you touch any of my people in the cryotubes, or so much as enter the hangar bay again, rest assured that I will never stop hunting you. And I will spend every moment of that time contemplating the slowest possible way to kill you.”

******

As the echoes of the cold voice faded away, Molly drew her knees up farther into her chest and shivered against the cool surface of the bulkhead. The light was poor everywhere on this gloomy starship, and where Molly was huddled, tucked into a corner at the junction of two access tunnels deep in the port nacelle, it was almost completely dark. 

His voice had awakened her, and his threats had iced her blood, though she had had no intention of interfering with the cryotubes; she’d discovered them by accident. She’d only been checking the hangar bay for unsupervised shuttlecraft, on the off chance that she could use one to escape. No luck, though. It had been a faint hope, and at this moment, she was really more disturbed by the fact that he could somehow tell that she’d been on the hangar deck a few hours ago. Perhaps she’d left footprints? 

Her stomach rumbled. Even though she knew she had successfully gutted the crucial subroutine, Molly had hardly dared enter the habitable areas of the ship to access the food replicators. She would not make it so easy for her captor to discover her.

Her one major foray so far, to the Medical Bay deep in the saucer-shaped main hull, had been a terrifying ordeal. Fighting to control her trembling, she’d crept from corridor to corridor, peeking around every corner and expecting at every moment to see the waiting figure of the man who had abducted her from the _Enterprise_ for reasons unknown. 

As she had rematerialized on the Bridge of the _Vengeance,_ he had turned to look at her, and the reptilian stillness of his face had haunted her dreams in the sleep she’d just snatched. That cold, unearthly face, flickering behind her eyes along with the image of his enormous hands covered in fragments of bone and brain.

And the body on the Bridge---she couldn’t think about what the man had done to Admiral Marcus. If she let herself remember that sight, she would start screaming and never stop. 

The Medical Bay had been poorly provisioned with only the most basic of supplies, still sitting on pallets awaiting stowage. Molly had quickly pilfered a shoulder bag, an IV container of dextrose solution---she could drink the liquid first, and refill the bag with water later---and a tiny dental mirror for peering around corners. She’d also managed to locate a pathetically meager cache of her medication. It was all the ship had on board, unsurprisingly.

After three days, Molly had exhausted her supply of the tablets. She could not, would not suffer the consequences of letting her medication regimen lapse. If she were to have any hope of escaping this situation, she needed to keep her head clear and her body functional.

Painfully, Molly unfolded her stiff limbs from the nook. As she stood, slats of light fell across her torso from the corridor outside the access tunnel, and Molly leaned carefully away from the illumination and waited for full circulation to return to her limbs. Not for the first time, she recalled the shocked faces of her colleagues in the _Enterprise_ Medical Bay as they had faded from her vision behind a storm of golden energy particles. Where were they now? Had the man--- _Khan,_ she remembered---killed them all after she had fled his Bridge?

With a final shake of her tingling hands, Molly squared her shoulders. Another foray into the corridors was unavoidable. She needed to visit the head, and to resupply her food, her water, and her medication. She could not afford to let fear get in the way of her survival. 

A slow, careful crawl down a section of tunnel to the corridor hatchway, and a moment with her ear pressed against the bulkhead in the vain hope that she might hear any movement above the constant, heavy throb of the warp nacelle. An agonizing moment of vulnerability as she lifted the hatch away, and then she was standing in an empty corridor on shaking legs, glancing wildly to both sides. Quickly replacing the hatch, she reached for her most precious possession: a discarded phaser she’d found and holstered in her boot. She turned the safety off, and set it to kill.

Remembering that she ought to turn left to return to the main stardrive section, Molly started down that corridor. It was slow going, using her dental mirror at each turn and junction, clutching the phaser in her trembling hand. 

Molly reached the turbolift and took a breath. This would be the most dangerous section of her journey; if her abductor was monitoring, which he almost certainly was, he would see that a secondary turbolift had been activated in a warp nacelle, though the corrupted subroutine would prevent him from seeing whether it was on the port or starboard side. She suspected she’d been lucky the first time she’d used this turbolift, some hours back; either he had not been paying attention, or he’d chosen to investigate the starboard nacelle first, giving her time to hide herself deep inside the warren of conduits in the port nacelle.

If he had indeed come after her then, that was one evasion she could call a success. But after her few hours of sleep up here, she now felt deeply anxious about the bottleneck of the turbolift access to the nacelle, and had decided to try for the much larger stardrive section. Nearly three-quarters of a kilometer long, with dozens of decks, it would offer more possibilities for escape if he started hunting her in earnest. 

Molly stepped inside the turbolift and tapped the display icon for Deck 15: enlisted crew quarters. Even if he’d found a way to track the deck she’d chosen, he’d find nothing sensitive or suspicious in her choice of location, no reason to harm her, and for the moment Molly would be content just to eat, refill her water container, and synthesize a supply of medication that would last her a while. 

The turbolift hummed to life. Molly pressed herself against the side of the door, phaser at the ready, but when the door slid open to display Deck 15, Molly sensed nothing but stale air and the clean, faintly plasticky odor of never-used fittings and furnishings. 

After using the main room’s head, keeping the door of the small compartment open and training her phaser on the turbolift door at every moment, she darted into the nearest of the crew quarters and punched up some basic provisions from the replicator. Cramming a protein bar into her mouth, she ordered a large container of water to drink her fill from and then to pour into her own water bag. Finally, she called up the medical library. 

As she’d hoped, the ship’s Medical Bay had not yet been fully programmed due to the absence of a chief medical officer, and it was a relatively simple matter to trick the basic system into synthesizing a nontoxic prescription medication. However, convincing the replicator to create more than one dose at a time proved impossible, and she’d already missed her dose today. 

Swallowing the precious tablet, Molly contemplated crossing the hall and trying to get another dose from a different replicator, but decided against it. It took time to break into a new machine, and Molly had already spent too long on this deck for her comfort. 

Slinging her supply bag across her body, Molly stooped to open another hatchway. She slipped gratefully into the darkness of the access tunnel, crawled to one of the emergency ladders, and began to climb. 

****

In the center of the Bridge, Khan lounged in the captain’s chair just as he had lounged on his throne. So many years ago, now. He spared a moment to remember it all, the trains of advisers, ambassadors, and functionaries who had passed in and out of the great chamber of state, at the heart of the city to which he had returned its most ancient name: Byzantium. 

But it was his private residence he really missed, the warm sunlight and cool breezes playing across the great atriums and through the latticed windows. And oh, all his lovely little Omegas, lounging on their silks and cushions, their skin glowing in every shade of olive and black and pink and gold. Their soft, round limbs welcoming him when he arrived at the end of each day, their wet mouths forming his name as he sank onto them, inside them. The heady rush of his blood when he scented one ripening into her Heat, the sweet abandon of their coupling, the marble atrium echoing with their cries. Their bellies swelling with his children, so many beautiful children, their names forming an epic poem that sang in his mind. 

All dead, all murdered. His bloodline slaughtered, his palace destroyed, laid waste by an air strike while he himself was in Moscow, consulting with his fellow Augment leaders on how to handle the escalating calls of war from the few unconquered nations. Already numb with grief, he’d sat unmoving as word reached the group of attacks on other Augment palaces and compounds. Paris. Oslo. Marrakesh. Lima. Sydney. Tokyo. Cairo. Many more, all destroyed. 

So many of his family, Augment and blood, had been killed on that bright day. He and his followers had escaped Sector 001 not long after, and entered their long sleep. Centuries ago to the rest of the universe, but in Khan’s breast, the grief and rage were still fresh, still cut him with the immediacy of a blade.

Khan was alone here in this cold future, his stolen starship the last hope for his people. He would bring them all away on their outbound course, far into the deepest space, and seek out an unknown Class M planet where they could settle and regain their old strength. With any luck, they would interbreed and found a new generation of Augments, if biology could once again be forced to bend to their wishes. 

With that thought, Khan’s attention turned to the reproductive geneticist. The game had gone on too long, and Khan’s tolerance for possible complications to his plan was at an end. He would turn his full attention to bringing the Beta to heel, though the thought of so much time away from the Bridge, from tactical sensor readings and long-range scanner data, sat like a lump of ice in his gut. Whatever happened, he would make the Beta suffer for her willfulness, for stealing his time away from vital matters at hand.

First, then, to analyze the limited data he had available, even blinded as it was by the corrupt subroutine. The data ran across his display. Not long ago, a turbolift had been activated in a nacelle, going at least ten decks if the energy usage readout was correct. Could be a decoy. Not worth pursuing.

Hatchways had been opened, motion had been detected...somewhere. Nothing on the cameras; their location-based activation had been stymied as well, and she was wisely avoiding recognizable areas. Records of replicator usage…

Khan stirred in his seat. Was it possible? Could he believe what he was seeing? There, under the predictable list of fluids and portable rations the Beta had accessed, a record had been created just a few minutes ago, a record of the synthesis of a hormonal medication. 

“Estrus suppressor hormone, progenestrezel, zero point five milligrams,” Khan breathed. Onto the display, he called up data on the drug and read, his eyes darting avidly, then accessed the Med Bay library for a deeper look into the phenomenon. When he had finished, he was still for a long moment, contemplating. Remembering….

He sat back in the command chair. His research was unequivocal. Marcus had lied to him; there were still Omegas in this century, throwbacks to the time before. Few in number, their condition deemed distasteful in this age of reason and control. But it seemed they could pass for Betas in every way by the use of this new molecule, this...heat suppressant. 

“Well,” Khan said softly, “you slipped up, little Omega. Easy to capture you now, and I won’t even have to leave this chair.”

“Computer,” he continued in a clear voice. “Access replicator pattern memory and Medical Bay library. Delete the molecular patterns for progenestrezel and any biosimilar molecules from all ship’s records.”

“Warning. This action will permanently delete the information. Please confirm.”

He smiled wolfishly. “Confirm.”


	2. Descent

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay  
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee  
From darkness to promote me?  
John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

******

“Doctor. We must talk.”

The cold, deep voice sounded in every corner of the ship, echoing down every dark corridor. Panic spiked through Molly where she stood in the executive crew quarters, causing her to drop the container of water she’d just removed from the replicator. Trying to calm herself, Molly drew a deep breath, only to choke as his voice filled her ears again, and she slumped helplessly to the floor. 

“I can see that you have just used a replicator. Return to it. You and I are going to have dinner together. And talk.”

Panting, Molly pulled herself into a crouch, her foot sending one of her protein bars spinning across the floor. She’d spilled the water; it would leave a damp spot on the carpet that _he_ might find---she had to leave immediately---

“Come now,” his voice said evenly, at a lower volume. “Surely you must be hungry for some real food after four days of...what have we here?...protein bars, fruit and nut rations, water, water, water. You are on a Dreadnought-class starship, doctor. You don’t have to eat like a refugee. Now, go to the replicator and tap anywhere on the display.”

Molly didn’t move, her mind racing. He’d been tracking her replicator use. What if he’d found a way to pinpoint her location through the replicators? But she’d already used---

“I’m not going to come after you, doctor. I am in the captain’s ready room, just off the Bridge. And,” he continued as Molly heard clicking sounds coming from all around her, “I have just sealed every door and hatchway on the ship. Neither of us are going anywhere for a while. Now, doctor. To the replicator.” His voice had grown soft and, if possible, even more dangerous. “I will not ask you again.” 

Molly couldn’t see how she could defy him. Numbly, she stood up and touched a finger to the replicator’s display. 

A meal appeared in the slot. A real, hot meal, with soup and bread, fresh vegetables and a savory protein dish, even a glass of wine. Molly swallowed. She had been surviving on portable rations for a long while, and it smelled delicious. Cautiously, Molly took the tray and placed it on the nearby table. She sat, not touching the utensils. 

“I hope you’ll enjoy our meal, doctor. There is nothing wrong with your portion, by the way. No poison or other contaminants. I don’t intend to harm you. I realize you have no reason to believe me, but it is true. Are you near a display?”

Molly looked to her right; the small display near the table was stirring to life, and suddenly, she was looking into his face. Those strong bones, thick black hair, brows lowering toward the camera, those ice-colored eyes.

“I cannot see you, but I’ve activated an audio feed from all displays, so you can speak to me. In fact, I require that you do.” His rather plush mouth settled into a determined line. 

He looked perfectly composed, not a hair out of place. All at once, Molly was very grateful that he could not see her, with her greasy, unkempt hair and soiled blue uniform. 

“Now,” he continued. “Do you know my name? I do not know yours.”

That was both surprising and worrying. If he didn’t know who she was, why in the world had he taken her, someone not on the _Enterprise_ Bridge, but a junior physician, tucked away out of sight down in the Med Bay? 

But it would not do to keep him waiting. She cleared her throat. “Khan,” she said, her voice rusty from disuse. 

“Ah. There is your voice. Yes. I am Khan Noonien Singh.”

Molly frowned. “You don’t...you don’t look like a Sikh,” she blurted, then put her fingers to her mouth. 

“I’m not,” he told her, unsmiling. “My surname is the name of the genetic engineer who designed me, and Khan is the designation he gave me when I was born. Or, rather, decanted from my bio-cocoon. Do you know who I am?”

“You’re a murderer,” she whispered. 

“Yes,” he readily agreed. “I have ended a great many lives. Always with good reason. How much do you know about the Augment program?”

“You’re...you were genetically engineered. Centuries ago.”

“The Augment program engineered us for leadership. The basis for my genome was the program’s prize sample, the genetic pattern of a rather extraordinary Englishman. Doctor Noonien Singh won the right to develop that sample, then used it as a scaffold for a suite of improved traits. Supercharged wound repair. Improved musculoskeletal structure. Revised pain threshold. Quickened reflexes. Altered cerebrovascular and cardiovascular systems. Extraordinary intelligence. Among many other upgrades, to create the ultimate warrior-prince.” 

Molly looked into Khan’s face, at the absolute consciousness of superiority in his eyes, the power he carried in every cell of his body. Implacable. Unstoppable. What could she do against this man? How could she ever hope to disable him, to escape him? Molly fought against the rising terror that threatened to paralyze her body, to bring her to her knees. 

“So,” he continued. “You have questions.”

To wet her dry mouth, Molly took a sip of the wine. The crisp flavor bloomed on her tongue. Her stomach cramped with hunger, but she could not think of eating any of the food that was growing cold before her. She willed herself to be calm, to respond rationally to his apparent willingness to give her information that might prove critical to her survival. 

“Who else is on this ship?” she asked, setting the wine glass down carefully before her shaking hand could spill it.

“With the exception of my people in cryosleep, whom I will not awaken yet, there is no one else. We are alone.”

Molly believed him. She had seen no evidence of any other people on the _Vengeance._ Which led her to her next, urgent question.

“What do you want with me?” 

“I require your expertise. My people all share a certain hormonal configuration that makes it challenging for us to breed with each other without help, and I intend to found a colony and raise the next generation from what is left of us. Join me, and I will treat you well. And believe me when I tell you that it will go best for you if you cooperate sooner rather than later.”

What hormonal configuration could that be? But she would think about that---and his promise, and his threat---later. “And wh-where are you taking me?”

“As to our destination, I am not yet sure of it, and even if I were I would not tell you. However, to make your situation clear, I will reveal that we have left the Sol system far behind, and are descending relative to the plane of the galactic disk. We have already traveled several light years straight down and are swiftly approaching the end of known space.”

Molly nearly fainted. She had to lean against the table for a moment as the enormity of her predicament crashed into her mind. She was falling into the abyss of space, farther and farther at every moment from everything she had ever known. Trapped alone with the most dangerous person she had ever encountered. No help, no hope. For a split second, Molly considered making her way to the nearest airlock and…

No. Molly reached for her focus, the determination that had carried her through medical school and specialty training, all the way to Starfleet. Khan’s ship might be attacked and recaptured by pursuing vessels. He might slip up and give her an opportunity to kill him and set a distress beacon. She still had her phaser, and it would take weeks to repair the proprioception subroutine. If he gave her any opening, she’d take it. 

His deep voice sounded all around her, shocking her out of her moment of resolve. “Done asking questions, then. My turn. What is your name, doctor?”

“M-Molly Hooper.” No use holding that piece of information back from him. Even if he were to risk subspace transmission to hack into Starfleet’s database, he’d find nothing remarkable in her history. Perhaps he’d even underestimate her. 

“Molly. Hooper.” His voice grew lower, almost caressing, and Molly shivered. “A reproductive geneticist. And an Omega.”

Molly closed her eyes. He’d already mentioned that he had been watching her replicator activity, so of course he would have discovered her abnormality. Her cheeks burned with shame, but she lifted her chin.

“That’s a rather archaic way to put it, but yes,” she said, proud that she’d kept her voice from shaking this time. “I do have atavistic estrus expression syndrome. I was born this way. A few people are, still. And it’s none of your business, Khan,” she added defiantly. 

“Oh, but it is,” Khan said, in that low, low voice. His face seemed to fill her vision, his eyes seeming to look into her very core, her deepest secret places. 

“I’ve grown tired of this game of cat and mouse,” Khan told her. “You’re a threat to my ship, however slight. I intend to bring you to heel, and I won’t hesitate to use your so-called atavistic Omega biology to do so.”

He paused, leveling his gaze at her, and hot fear burned through her body. 

“You’ve torn out a subroutine of my ship in an attempt to defy me, and it will take many days to repair,” he continued. “I will not let you remain at large for that long. So, here is my countermove. I have permanently deleted your heat suppressant drug from the replicator pattern library and the Med Bay records. You will go into heat in a matter of days. I need not go after you, because before long, little Omega, you will come to me.”

Molly remembered his mention of his people’s “hormonal configuration,” and the fragmentary stories from that period of Earth’s history, and made the final, fatal connection.

“You’re an Alpha,” Molly whispered. “Oh, god.” 

Whispered rumors, the taunts of others at her schools and places of work, and her own research into her condition all indicated the same: in the throes of heat, with an Alpha within scenting distance, the ancient Omegas had been gagging for it, panting after their Alphas like animals, nearly mindless with the need to mate. No new Alphas were born anymore, and she had never thought to encounter one. But he was right; he would not need to come after her. She would be inexorably drawn to him, and then…

Molly couldn’t help it. She finally broke down and wept in terror. 

He’d heard her. “No. Don’t...don’t do that,” Khan said stiffly, setting his jaw. His eyes flickered down, once.

As Molly fought for calm, Khan spoke, and for the first time there was a note of hesitation in his voice. 

“In your society, Omegas are...not prized. Am I correct?”

Molly stretched her neck, trying to get rid of the lump in her throat. “Yes,” she croaked. “We...It’s hard for people like me. Sometimes.” 

“You cannot help how you were born. No more can I,” Khan said, his voice deep, mesmerizing. “Human beings once believed that their fates were written in the stars, but you, an Omega with your expertise, you know better than anyone that our fate is truly written in our genetic code. Would I have wished to be engineered as I am, had I been given the choice? I cannot say. But know that my ultimate goal is not war and destruction, nor even revenge, at least in the final analysis. My goals are many, but after everything I intend to create and rule over a peaceful, ordered domain. As once I did, before I was attacked. To regain what is mine by right.” His eyes glittered. 

The clicking noises sounded all around Molly again. 

“I have unlocked the doors. Now, this is what is going to happen,” Khan said, his voice sharp and commanding once more. “You will go to the brig and enter a cell I have prepared. I will place a timed lock on the cell door so that neither of us will be able to open it. And together, given no choice, we shall _wait it out.”_

Molly did not believe for one second that this criminal would hesitate to force himself on her. “No!” she cried, an edge of madness in her voice. “You go in the cell. Not me.”

“Astonishing that you imagine I’d ever let you run loose on this ship while I imprison myself,” he snarled, slamming a fist onto his table. “Go to the brig now. Do not delay, or there will be consequences. I don’t intend to harm you, if I can help it, but I urge you not to test the power of our biology, Doctor Hooper.” And Khan’s face disappeared from the display. 

Liar, Molly thought. Murderer. Terrorist. Thief. Traitor. She would never walk willingly into his trap. Even if by some chance he truly did not mean to assault her in the cell, he would surely never let her escape his power. She must stay free until she could kill him. It was her last, best chance. 

Silently, Molly vowed that she would find a way to hide from Khan, use every trick she could think of. She would keep her freedom, remain watchful, and continue to await her opportunity. 

Molly picked up her utensils and dug into the meal. She’d need to hold out for the long haul, and she did not intend to waste this food.


	3. Pride

Who overcomes  
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.   
John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

******

After only two days without her heat suppressant, Molly could already feel the beginning of the burn, the ache and misery and desperation of heat. The hormonal storm was coming over her, and fast. 

She’d only ever had one heat---her first---and it had been the worst experience of her life. The doctors had taken one look at the groaning, thrashing adolescent and drawn blood to confirm her diagnosis. Then she had been locked in a room by herself to ride it out. She’d spent days weeping in frustration and shame, her body screaming for a release that she could never reach. After it was finally over, they’d sat her down and explained that while there was medication to hold back her heats, her condition was chronic, and that with no more Alphas in existence, she could never have children….

Khan had deactivated the replicators, she’d discovered. They gave her only water, now, and she’d been drinking deeply to quench her terrible thirst. Lack of food wasn’t really a problem; Molly had no appetite to speak of, and every bit of focus she had was directed toward building and supplying her airtight shelter. 

Molly had taken a terrible risk and re-entered the hangar deck through the access hatch she’d used before. It had paid off; Khan either had not noticed or did not choose to make good on his earlier threat, and she had successfully secured a light space suit with an oxygen/carbon dioxide reprocessing unit. She’d laid in a supply of water and a closed container to use as a toilet. She was out of food, but she’d survive a few days with nothing to eat, and hope she could hack into a replicator when she emerged. It was not in Khan’s interest to let her starve to death, in any case.

Finally, from emergency supplies, Molly had stolen several large canisters of the sprayable foam resin that Starfleet personnel used to temporarily seal a minor hull breach and stop air from leaking into space. She planned to create a tiny, airtight chamber in the furthest conduit of the starboard nacelle, sealing away her pheromones and protecting her from his. It was a narrow area, with only one entrance. She’d use the foam resin to seal herself in, and wait until either her heat receded or Khan broke into her shelter. And if he did, she would not hesitate to take him down with her phaser. 

She’d planned to climb inside the space suit for a double layer of protection, but the suit’s fingers were too large and clumsy, preventing her from holding the phaser. So instead, she planned to rig the helmet’s reprocessing unit to refresh her air supply while the suit was open. And the suit might be slightly more comfortable to lie on than the composite floor of the narrow conduit. 

It was a good plan, Molly thought. It could succeed. She would show Khan her resolve to remain free. In fact, some part of Molly rather hoped Khan would break into her shelter. Let him try it. On the highest setting, this phaser could melt steel; that much energy to the skull was unsurvivable even with Khan’s toughness. It might be her best chance to kill him. 

****

On the Bridge, Khan stood by the main viewscreen, leaning his arm up against the frame and looking out into the endless field of stars, watching as his prize ship dove ever farther into the deep. Only a few final outposts remained between the _Vengeance_ and unexplored territory. 

He believed now that he’d shaken off Starfleet’s pursuit, that he could soon hide his people in the sheer vastness of space. Use the starship to establish and defend a planetside colony, then turn the Augments’ vast energy and intelligence to the agreeable task of establishing the next generation. And after the Augments had again gathered their power...

Khan’s muscles spasmed, catching him unawares; he clenched his jaw. Though he had not consciously scented the Omega for days, still he could tell that her heat was coming upon her. Some few molecules of her pheromones must be seeping throughout the ship via the recirculation of air; even with that tiny stimulus, he could feel his body responding. 

The blood tingling in his veins. A fine sweat. A burning throughout his body, as if there were a layer of molten metal under his skin. The heavy stir of his cock in his trousers. Wherever she was, he knew she must be reacting to the similar traces of his own pheromones. Her heat would intensify, and then so would her scent, and in response he would burn ever hotter to join with her, his body amplifying his own scent lure. It was a positive feedback loop that would end, if he were not careful, in the destruction of any chance of her willing participation in his plan. 

Having her in the cell would not be easy. On either of them. But he needed her expertise to establish his colony, and he’d get poor results from a defiant prisoner whom he’d assaulted and likely impregnated against her will. Perhaps she’d even sabotage the colony’s efforts. She did seem rather the determined sort, he thought in grudging admiration.

Besides, Khan had never forced himself on any Omega; it was a point of pride. Why should he ever take a delicate little Omega against her will? To do so would be unworthy of his strength, his potency, not only as an Alpha, but also as an Augment. 

Oh, he had heard of other rulers, even Augment rulers, who had used their subjects viciously. He scorned them as weak, contemptible. A true sovereign would never assert dominance in such a way over those so much weaker than himself. A wise leader was benevolent; he or she guided and protected the people and earned their respect, expanding the leader’s influence into minds and hearts. 

Besides, a willing Omega’s final cry of ecstasy, wrung from her throat as he thrust his swollen knot into her wet, shaking body, was the sweetest sound he had ever heard. 

In the brig, the modified cell stood ready for whenever Doctor Hooper came to accept her untenable position and the futility of resisting his will. As soon as she stepped inside, the special motion sensors would sense her entry, and the door would seal itself behind her. He’d programmed its lock to continuously encrypt itself, changing its entry code a hundred times a second, until a full week had elapsed. Likely more time than was needed, but he preferred to err well on the side of caution in this case. He’d even removed the expandable port that normally facilitated limited interaction with the prisoner; even that much access could be risky. The only thing that could begin to breach that cell door was the concentrated fire of two phasers, and Khan had locked them all away in a minimally accessible area. All but one, which he kept on his person at every moment. 

Despite his earlier threats to her, and in spite of the precaution of the cell, Khan was reasonably sure that he could indeed control himself. He had been near other Omegas in full heat, and he had managed to resist his body’s demands when mating would not have been appropriate. Or if the Omega in question was not to his taste; he’d never cared to pursue a male Omega, for example. For Khan, always the sweetness, the softness of females, on whom he could sire children. 

Dropping his impassive facade for a moment, Khan closed his eyes in misery as the beautiful song began once more to sing in his head, its former joy twisted into an agonizing lament. _Sema. Antonio. Anna-Maria. Kefilwe. Abraham. Mongkut. Lakshmi. Pietr. Tara. Altan. Rashaad. Motoko. David. Chuluun. Jasmina._ And so many others. Their little hands, their lively faces, all the dear scents of their hair. All lost forever, never to grow tall or live happy or rule wisely under his care and guidance. 

Khan’s huge hand tightened into a fist against the glass of the viewscreen. He would honor their memory by making more children, so many more, and raising them to carry out the destiny that should have belonged to all those of his bloodline. And for that, he needed, he required the Omega. The reproductive geneticist, this lovely Molly, no, this Doctor Hooper. She was what he needed, his first step toward rebuilding all he’d lost. 

A polite beeping from the small radio unit at his waist drew his attention. Ah, activity near the one of the individually controlled motion sensors he’d set earlier. So, now. He pushed away from the glass and walked to the secondary turbolift. 

Time to throw her off balance, to accelerate the pace of the game far beyond anything she’d bargained for. He knew just the way to push her, to scare her into obedience while minimizing the risk to his own control. Oh, little Molly Hooper would be safely in his grasp, and very soon. 

As he walked, he pulled off his form-fitting black shirt.

*****

An hour later, Molly sprawled on the floor in the near-dark of the stardrive’s main turbolift junction point, writhing slowly, her hands in her loosened hair. 

She’d just obtained a few final supplies from an emergency depot, and had emerged from the turbolift in order to change to a different turbolift to the starboard nacelle. The junction point was always a dangerous area; if he were to lie in wait for her, it was very likely that he’d choose this location. So she always scanned it carefully, phaser at the ready, before leaving a turbolift. 

But this time, though Khan himself was nowhere to be seen, she had smelled an unspeakably delicious scent at the same moment that she caught sight of something out of place at the turbolift junction. There was a small puddle of black fabric in the middle of the floor, and the heady, sublime perfume _(musk, soft leather, ice-soaked fur, a deep black forest under a starless sky)_ seemed to be emanating from it. Curious, fascinated, Molly had felt herself drawn irresistibly forward, and had made the unforgivable mistake of picking up the fabric and pressing it to her face. By the time she’d realized what the fabric must be and flung it down a garbage chute, cursing her malevolent captor, it had been too late.

Now her heat was overtaking her, prisoning her mind and body, and Molly was terrified to discover that it was coming on far faster and stronger than her only other heat in her adolescence. She seemed to be losing coordination; her fingers had grown clumsy. Just now she had dropped her precious canister of foam resin, leaving a hardening gout of the plasticky white stuff across the wall and floor where it would surely draw the Alpha’s attention. But she could barely think of her airtight refuge now. She could barely think at all. 

Twisting her body against the floor helped and did not help. The sensation of pressure was comforting for a moment, but the need to move, to rhythmically contort her body was mounting moment by moment. 

And her senses were sharpening unbearably, her skin so sensitive that peeling her damp arms and thighs away from the composite surface of the floor left them burning. Sweat was pouring off her; at this rate, her skin was giving off a thick cloud of pheromones, but that was nothing compared to the heavy scent that was rising from between her legs. 

Swollen, she was so swollen. And wet, her sex drooling an obscene trail of slickness past her underwear and down her thighs. Her short uniform skirt was already soaked at the hem, and the deep, horrible ache she remembered had sharpened into pain. Empty, so empty, she wanted to push her bottom against something, to reach for pressure on her pussy. Molly crossed her thighs tightly, tilted her pelvis back against the floor, and clamped both hands over her mouth to keep from crying out in despair. 

Hot, aflame, she couldn’t bear it, couldn’t think straight. She needed to be cool, cold water, she wanted to dive into a river, an ocean, yes, cold water. Molly found herself up and stumbling. Crew quarters, somewhere above. Turbolift to the main hull nearby. She could make it there. The button. 

Doors opening. Down the hall, an officer’s quarters, larger than where she’d been before, but here finally the shower, the controls, the spray. Cold, clean, yes. Oh, yes. 

Panting under the rush of frigid water, Molly pulled herself together somewhat. Her uniform was sopping wet now, her boots soaked. She kicked and tugged until there was nothing between her and the freezing torrent, then braced both hands against the cubicle wall and let the water flow soothingly over her head and body. She stood there for many minutes, slowly quieting her mind as _his_ pheromones were washed away and her fever was beaten back for a time. 

She needed to get to her airtight shelter. When she left the shower, her symptoms would again make it difficult to function, so Molly rehearsed her route in her mind, running over the sequence several times. Main turbolift. At the junction, pick up the canister of foam sealant she’d dropped. Then the auxiliary turbolift. Head aft, the final turbolift, top floor, the starboard nacelle. Second-to-last access panel. The farthest corner of the farthest conduit. Seal herself in. Wait. 

Her phaser was still inside her discarded boot. She could still get through this, survive. And the Alpha...the Alpha…

And suddenly his deep, velvety voice was all around her, aggressively male, thrumming in her bones, spiking right down to her cunt. Molly cried out, almost missing his first words. 

“Get to the cell, now. For both our sakes, Molly, you need to go to the brig, and enter the cell immediately opposite the door. Don’t delay for any reason. Please trust me. Go now.” His voice was gruff, ragged. 

Molly groped for the controls and shut the water off in order to hear him more clearly. His voice grew soft, caressing, and Molly felt her cunt give a deep, delicious throb.

“I will be there, Molly. I’ll come and meet you in the brig, in the cell. I’ll come inside. I promise I’ll...I’ll…” 

Khan panted for a moment, then continued. “We can help each other. Just go, please. Go to the cell. Do it now.”

Still dripping with cold water, Molly stepped out of the shower. Going to the brig sounded so good, it would be a lovely idea, if he were there, if he came to her. Such a lovely idea. 

She bent and pulled her phaser out of her discarded boot. 

*****

Khan stepped away from the display and slammed both fists against the bulkhead, the muscles jumping and knotting in his pale shoulders. Turning on his heel, he stalked across the Bridge, then back again, crossing in front of the viewscreen time and again, the impact of his boots echoing in the silent space. He fisted a hand in his hair and looked wildly out into the moving field of stars. 

He’d gravely miscalculated when he’d stripped off his black uniform shirt and left it at the turbolift junction in hopes of triggering a precipitous spike in her heat and frightening her into obedience. His brain had clearly been affected by her scent, and tricked him into coming nearer to her. His plan had backfired on him in the worst possible way.

When the turbolift doors had opened on the junction, he knew she’d been there recently, oh, he knew for certain because her powerful, glorious, sweet scent had dropped him to his knees. He’d panted there, fighting for control, savagely trying to force away the memories that were pouring through his mind, gripping the turbolift doors for balance as the rush of images blinded him. 

His lovely Omegas, all of them, sleek and plump and thin, dark and pale and dusky-gold, all their different faces and bodies flickering and changing. All their names on his lips as each of them appeared in turn, on all fours before him, keening with want. And then it was her, little Molly, her name he growled out, his mind recalling his few glimpses of her face with eerie accuracy. His hands on her hips, his knee shoving her legs apart....

He’d torn at his own hair until the pain broke into his trance, then managed to fling his shirt out into the junction point and verbally commanded the turbolift to return to the Bridge. He needed to be at the ready, mind clear, unimpaired in case of pursuit or attack on the _Vengeance._ He had been foolish to go where she’d recently gone, to expose himself to such a heavy dose of her scent. _Too close._

He could smell her even now. By hell, the scent of her cunt was thick and sweet on the air, inescapable. The Omega must have found his shirt; her pheromone levels had risen exponentially soon after he’d returned to the Bridge, the intoxicating perfume of her heat far stronger than that of any Omega he’d scented before. And now, tormented, without release for longer than he’d ever been, for the first time in his life he sensed his body spiking into the mindless frenzy of what must be a full Alpha rut. 

He should have worn a respirator. He should have searched the Med Bay for some kind of drug that could modulate his rocketing androgen levels. He should have been more patient, and refrained from deleting her heat suppressor in the first place. Above all, he should have stayed on the Bridge and kept his damned shirt on.

He had just been reduced to tempting her with a transparently weak deception, to luring her to the brig with the promise of himself, of the consummation of her incipient lust for his body. But at every moment, he was using all of his will to stay on the Bridge, to keep himself from running to the brig and turning his deceit into truth. Even if she had not gone to the brig, if he let himself start tracking her, he’d never stop. 

The incredible intensity of her heat was surely because of her years of heat suppression, he belatedly realized. Of course her hormones would come roaring back when given free reign, coupled with his own potent Alpha stimulus. How she must be suffering.

Cruel, it was cruel, Khan thought in frantic disgust. The few remaining Omegas were precious, gifted by mere genetic happenstance to this century’s endless droves of acrid Betas. But Omegas were scorned now, the delicious surrender of their heat seen as a crippling liability, even a disgusting aberration, something to be suppressed, denied, erased. Humans now preferred to pretend that they’d evolved beyond their genetic legacy, that they were no longer ruled by superior leaders, but by their own cool reason. That everyone was steady, rational, their passions tameable. That their nature was no longer savage. That they had _control._

Khan placed a huge palm flat on the front of his trousers, and slowly closed his hand over his viciously throbbing cock until his fist was shaking and the pain made him clench his teeth. 

He’d prove to them all how wrong they were. 

But not here, not this day. Not on the body of this delicate little Omega, whom he’d abducted and brought to this pass, whom he’d condemned to be his partner in misery. Turning swiftly, determined to move while his resolve still held, he threw himself into the captain’s chair and, with a terse command, deployed and locked the restraint straps. 

 

****

Molly crept along the corridor silently on bare feet, phaser at the ready, making for the Bridge. Her other hand trailed along the bulkhead, keeping her upright whenever she was overcome by the pain in her belly and had to double over, occasionally falling to her knees and sobbing for a moment before clambering up again. She wished she had her dental mirror for peering around corners; she wished she had thought to redress herself. But more than anything, she wished that Khan would appear. That he would step forward arrogantly and present a nice, easy target for her shaking weapon hand. She could think of nothing else but keeping her focus, and her longing for him. For his death.

Khan had not been in the Brig; the lack of concentrated scent in the air told her that he had not come near the room for some time. She had avoided the one open cell, the one he’d ordered her to enter. Even in her distracted state, she’s seen that inside it were gray motion sensors, which the other two cells lacked, and the prey animal she’d become knew how to recognize a trap. Instead, Molly had readied her phaser and lurked just behind the door frame for a time, trying to quiet her panting breaths. It was difficult to count time when every second of her suffering felt like an age, but she had waited there until she could wait no more, until she felt herself compelled to follow the heavy, dark, coiling trails of scent that beckoned her closer, closer, into the heart of the main hull. 

Her heat had grown ever more insistent since she’d left the shower, and it seemed to her that his scent had grown far stronger; now she could smell it everywhere she went. Lust gripped her, drew her forward even as her trembling and the swelling between her legs made it difficult to walk. Her airtight shelter? No. She could not bear this craving that tore at her belly. It had to end. She had to find him. He had to die. 

Here, finally, the door that opened onto the Bridge. His scent enfolded her, filled her lungs like a smoke. Molly steeled herself once, then raised her phaser and stepped carefully forward.

****

As he’d feared, she had come. She was there, creeping toward him on lovely bare legs, her clothes discarded somewhere, her long, loose hair doing nothing to conceal her nakedness. She had a phaser in her hand, trained on him, and something in his mind sounded an urgent alarm. But he ignored the phaser for the moment, raking his hungry gaze down her body. Slim, this one, her features fine. Large brown eyes. Soft pink nipples, a damp patch of pubic hair. Radiating the scorching scent of sex like the incandescent heart of a star. 

Khan swallowed hard, nostrils flaring with his breath, bare shoulders straining against the solid hold of the restraint straps. 

“Back,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Don’t come any closer.” Oh, come closer, tender thing, my beautiful, wet little Omega. Be just a little careless. Just put yourself within reach of my hands. I’ll do the rest. His pounding heartbeat filled his throat. 

She didn’t pause, her little feet unsteady but moving her forward all the same. Her face flushed red. Her eyes, unreadable. And her phaser was pointed directly at his head. She was close enough now that he could clearly see that it had been set to kill. Khan put both hands into his hair and tore at his scalp, closing his eyes, willing the pain to clear his mind for one final effort.

“You can’t kill me,” he snarled. “I’ve set a timed self-destruct sequence on this ship. Unless I am alive to give the cancellation code, you’ll die in three days.”

“Lying,” she whispered through trembling, wet lips. Her eyes never wavered. 

She’d seen through him. She had him. It was over. 

“I...I underestimated you, lovely Molly,” he breathed, unable to keep himself from pitching his voice low and resonant, just as he’d speak to an Omega who was moaning on her knees before him. “You are clearly a superior woman. Intelligent, stubborn, resourceful, courageous. If I must die, I am honored...to die by your hand.”

Molly was still for a long moment. Khan leaned forward, pulling hard against the restraints, gazing at her where she stood against the field of stars. Wanting to fill his final seconds with the beauty of her bright skin, the endless night of her dark eyes. 

Then Molly moved, and fired her phaser, directing its scorching, slicing beam into the strap of the restraint.


	4. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Serious warning for dubcon/noncon, dark omegaverse, rough stuff, and violence.

Her rash hand in evil hour  
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat:  
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,  
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe  
That all was lost.  
John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

*******

Flinging aside the phaser, Molly backed unsteadily away from Khan as he fought to wrench himself free of the rest of the restraint. 

“Computer,” he snarled, his eyes locked to hers, black with menace. “All stop. Raise shields. Extend long-range sensors to maximum.” 

And the great hum of the warp engine faded into nothingness. Molly glanced to the viewscreen; the majestic movement of the starfield slowed, then stilled. She wondered how far she’d get on her shaking legs if she started running now.

With a great snarl, Khan pulled away from the command chair and stood at his full height, and Molly’s legs finally refused to support her a moment more. She stumbled backward and fell jarringly against the viewscreen, sliding to the floor of the Bridge as the starry image flickered with the impact. Khan bounded down and was on top of her in an instant.

“Omega. What have you done,” he growled lowly as his hands touched her flesh for the first time, holding her shoulders down against the deck with one hand as the other gripped a breast, caressed her belly and dipped long fingers into her swollen sex. His touch was leaving hot trails of sensation behind, her skin aflame to the point of pain. Molly whimpered with dread, holding her shaking hands up by her face as if to signal surrender.

His face above her, his long throat, his naked chest and shoulders. Even in the images on the display, how had she never seen his brutal beauty, the dark allure of the strength in his stillness, his intoxicating power? She cringed underneath him, spreading her legs to offer herself, aching for him to claim her, own her, fill her. That obscenely beautiful voice sounded in her ears.

“I’ve come close to death before, but you...you. Beautiful, dangerous little Omega. I was at your mercy. But you knew, knew that I belong inside you. No, get off your back. You’re not a damned Beta. You belong on your knees. Turn over, now.” That velvet sound filled her head, heavy with command, and to disobey was impossible.

Molly hurried to turn onto her stomach. Before she could settle herself, his huge hands, those crushingly strong hands that she’d first seen covered with bone and brain, seized her hips and pulled her pelvis roughly up toward him so that her hands slid and scrambled for balance.

“Open your legs, Molly. Good, that’s a good little Omega. Hell, look at your cunt...No, I’ll taste you later. Right now I’m just going to fuck you,” Khan said, and Molly heard the sound of his zip. “I’m going to knot you, hard. A little punishment for all you’ve done. I’ll knot you until you cannot walk, cannot run away from me, never leave me.”

“Knot me?” Molly gasped out, her mind gone hazy with fear, her face and shoulders pressed against the deck.

“Oh, Molly,” Khan said, dark laughter in his voice. “Hungry little Omega, all your life without me, so unsatisfied. Oh, I’ll show you what knotting is. Yes. I’ll make you scream.” Khan kicked away his boots, shoved at his trousers.

Trapped under his power, beside herself with fear and desire, Molly knew only that her instincts had taken iron control of her now, bidding her to lift her bottom up to him in supplication, into the primal position for mating. His hands tightened on her hips, and then she felt it, his cock pushing at her, inside her, impossibly huge, so much bigger than the few men before, delicious, painful. She wanted to tear away from his grasp, but instead she pushed helplessly back against his body as a moan tore from her throat.

“Yes, Molly. Stay still for just a moment,” Khan said, his voice ragged. His cock slid deeper into her cunt, so deep that Molly felt a sharp twinge of nausea, and coughed against the floor.

“Easy, now,” Khan panted, one hand releasing her hip and sliding along her spine, pressing deeply, soothing her almost against her will, his fingers finally resting on her cheek. “You were made for this. I’ve taken women smaller than you. Just breathe.” She could feel him trembling, struggling to leash his powerful urge to thrust. 

Molly’s hands clawed at the deck. “You murdered them,” she whispered, unable to stop herself. “You killed…” Her eyes fluttered closed.

You killed everyone, Molly thought, seeing their faces. Her commander Doctor McCoy, everyone else in the Med Bay. And the handsome captain, all the officers on the Bridge, that nice Mister Scott. Every person on the _Enterprise,_ all dead. Dead at his hands, these same hands that were stroking her hair and caressing her bottom as his cock filled her belly.

“Quiet, Molly,” Khan growled. Aching, beside herself with longing, Molly heard a soft keen arise from her throat as she rubbed her cheek against the deck.

“Please, Khan, please,” she cried. “I need it, I need…”

“I know exactly what you need,” Khan snarled. “No more talking, Omega. Just shut up. I’m taking what’s mine by right.”

And Khan arched his body over hers, fisting one hand in her hair as his hips began a punishing rhythm. It was agonizing, brilliant, filthy...unbearable heaven.

Oh, those other men, those few harmless creatures who barely merited the designation of male, he had been right, they’d left her frustrated with their timid touch, so unsatisfied. Khan was working her cruelly, his aberrant strength holding her without hope of escape; he was as far above those weak men as a wolf was above lapdogs.

She felt herself spasming around his cock, and Molly fleetingly realized that it had been an orgasm, one that she’d barely felt, crushed as it was against the mounting pressure in her pelvis as she pushed back. Reached for more, still more, dizzy from lack of air, all the breath pushed out of her lungs.

Khan was panting hard on top of her, his hands at her hips keeping her from completely collapsing onto the floor of the Bridge. He rumbled into her ear. “I want to hear your voice, Omega. Your cries, so sweet. Moan for me. If you resist, I promise that I’ll make you.” His fingers tightened bruisingly on her hips.

Molly opened her throat, sucked air into her lungs forcefully, and screamed as he thrust sharply into her. Screamed out the hideous exultation, the terror of being pinned underneath a monster at the blackest edge of space, screamed out the madness of the knowledge she’d tasted, that the most evil man she’d ever met was also the only man in the universe who could truly fill her, master her, bring her to this state of total abandon. 

Panic seared through her veins as Molly felt his cock enlarging at the base, the swelling rapidly becoming a fist of hot flesh that pressed heavily against her cunt. Khan pulled back a little, teasing her with the horrifying size of it, his laughter grim against her cheek.

“Do you feel my knot, Molly? Answer me,” he bit out, taking hold of her hair again and tugging her face up off the floor.

“Yes...Khan...yes...I feel it. Your knot,” Molly sobbed brokenly. Some deep instinct within her whispered what he meant to do with it. And even as her body called out its craving, the tears slipped down to wet the deck under her face as the fierce whisper sounded steadily in her mind. Killer. Savage. Demon. Letting her face and shoulders take her weight, she reached her arms back to hold onto his solid thighs, urging him to stay tightly pressed against her.

“Listen to me, Molly. You’re going to take it. Like a good little Omega, take my knot. Don’t you dare fight it,” he ground out. “Here it comes, sweet little bitch. Let me hear you cry.”

And Khan pushed hard into her, inexorably pressing the heavy knot inside her body, and Molly gave a great shudder, and wailed.

Molten metal ran inside her bones, an ocean of fire drowned her. The ecstasy was appalling, violating, as if she were being forever changed by it, contaminated. Distantly, Molly felt his teeth scraping hard against the side of her neck. 

Suddenly Khan reared his head back and gave a great shout, his voice ringing across the Bridge, and Molly felt hot liquid dropping onto her face, saw it spatter across the starfield, red liquid, blood. She craned her head wildly; Khan had set his teeth deep into his own forearm and torn a terrible wound into his flesh. In the same moment, she felt his wetness spilling into her cunt, running down her thighs, a shocking flood of it. Molly ducked her head and wept, pressing her bottom back against him as hard as she could.

His weight pressed her forward, down. Khan collapsed across her back, his knot still inside her, blood and semen pooling around their bodies. Inches from her face, he brought his hand other to his forearm to press the wound closed.

Closing her eyes in horror, Molly brought her hands to his hips and pushed at him, trying to nudge him off her. Wanting to run, wanting to soothe and care for his wound. “No, Molly,” Khan said into her hair. His voice was quiet, gruff. “We're not done. We'll be locked together for a while now. Don't get any of my blood in your mouth.”

She wiped at the blood on her face with her hair, then dared to look again at his arm.

“Khan, why...why did you do that?” Molly asked. She had glimpsed red, ragged muscle fibers in the bite, although the bleeding seemed to be slowing to a trickle already.

“I needed to stop...what I was doing. What I was about to do,” Khan told her. “A little pain was needed to redirect my impulse.”

“A little pain? I saw tendon inside that...”

“It will heal in hours,” Khan said. Interesting, Molly thought. She’d be sure to remember that little fact.

“What were you...about to do?” she asked.

“Later, Molly,” Khan replied. “Ah, ah, hold on...” Khan braced a leg to one side and pressed urgently against her, his cock pulsing inside her again, and her body responded. Molly sighed at the low, shivering climax that was more sweet, this time, than violent. More hot wetness trickled out of her, soothing where she was sore.

A calm settled heavily onto Molly's mind where for so long there had been frenzy. Her heat was still on her, but it seemed now to be forcing her toward a languid relaxation, the ecstatic terror of the last minutes receding from her mind. Khan appeared to be feeling something similar; his hands were sliding warmly against her skin, unmindful of the smears of blood he was painting onto her breasts and flanks.

Two, three, four times more, Khan pressed against her while orgasm took them both, his knot holding them together. After the second time, Khan rolled them onto their sides and pulled up her leg, his body curling around hers. He reached a long hand down to stroke her pussy, his warm fingers licking at her clitoris so that when he pushed hard inside and she came, it was with keening cries. Afterward, he’d bring his wet hand up to his mouth and taste her, thrumming deep in his chest. And when his knot subsided and his cock finally slipped free, he leaned over, took her chin in his hand, and kissed her, inhaling hungrily against her face.

Opening his eyes but not pulling his face away, Khan tightened his grip on her jaw, just a little. 

“You won’t run, Molly. We’re going to get up now, and you won’t run.” His shadowed eyes bored into hers. 

“No,” Molly breathed, her heart heavy with the sight of his beauty. She hoped her resolve would hold. “Oh,” she cried softly, leaning her head against his neck, “I’m hungry, Khan. I’m so hungry.” 

“Yes. I should not have deactivated the replicators. An Alpha cares for his Omega, brings her food. I had thought before that...if I resisted my instinct…” A muscle in his cheek twitched. “I’ll get you something.”

He got to his feet, then bent to take her hands and pull her up to him, and she stood on shaking legs. She was streaked with semen and his drying blood, and without the warmth of his body, it was cold on the Bridge. Molly shivered. 

“Stay here,” he told her, his eyes as cold and commanding as ever, and stepped back from her, making for a side door. Molly focused on his naked back, not trusting that he wouldn’t turn around suddenly. She would not yet let herself look at the phaser that lay on the floor a few meters away. Let him go into the other room first...

But before Khan reached the door, sensor alarms sounded, and the computer’s flat voice cut through the air. 

“Warning. Unknown vessel decloaking off starboard bow.” 

Khan’s head snapped around. “Onscreen!” he shouted, bounding to the command chair as Molly cringed back, covering herself instinctively.

The viewscreen flickered to a different view of the endless field of stars, where a shimmer of distortion soon resolved into the exotic shape of another civilization’s starship. Molly wasn’t sure, but she thought it could be---

"Romulans," Khan said, leaning forward in the command chair. "I studied them. A scout ship. Intelligence on this vessel could get back to the Federation. Computer, target Romulan ship. Fire all---" 

"No!" Molly cried, rushing to his side and catching at his arm. "You don’t have to kill---"

"---phasers, targeting enemy's forward shields," Khan finished, his voice loud over hers. He jerked his arm away and pushed her firmly so that she stumbled back a few steps. His eyes never left the viewscreen.

Under her feet, Molly felt the _Vengeance_ judder as the great phaser banks mounted underneath the ship began to pound the shields of the Romulan vessel.

A signal tone from the computer. "Enemy ship hailing."

"Open a channel, audio only," Khan rasped, tossing his black hair out of his eyes.

"Unidentified vessel, cease fire immediately!" The sharp female voice sounded over the Bridge. "This is science vessel _Chula_ of the Romulan Star Empire, Doctor Nuhir t’Terik in command. Unprovoked attack on this ship constitutes an act of war against the Empire under---"

Khan cut the channel manually with a tap of his chair display.

"That's no science vessel," Khan said. "Arm photon torpedoes."

"Can't we just run?" Molly pleaded, now afraid to touch him. "They've probably already sent a subspace distress call, so we need to run anyway---"

"I will send a message," Khan said. "Attack the _Vengeance_ and no quarter will be given. Computer, status of enemy shields."

"Enemy shields at eight percent.”

Khan glanced at Molly where she stood, wavering, and smiled unsettlingly. He tapped at his armrest display. “Excellent. Increase phaser---”

“Warning. Shields down. Enemy weapons arming."

"What? Target central weapons array!" Khan shouted, just as the Romulan vessel directed a burst of phaser fire at the _Vengeance._ He glanced down at his display, then tapped once. "Fire all wea---"

The ship lurched. A percussive noise, a shower of sparks from overhead, and the Bridge was plunged into near-darkness. Molly held onto the seat of the Conn station, and as the smoke started to dissipate, she felt a sickening disorientation that she didn't understand until her bare feet drifted up off the floor. 

The computer’s toneless voice sounded. "Gravity generator offline. Damage to secondary Bridge hull plating."

A pause followed the computer's statement, and Molly looked to Khan, confused at his silence. She was horrified to see his slack body drifting slowly upward out of the command chair. Red beads of blood floated from the back of his head, and his eyes were half-open, unfocused. In the same moment, the Romulan vessel fired again.

"Secondary Bridge hull plating at sixty-seven percent."

"Um," Molly squeaked, clutching at the Conn station as she bobbed awkwardly. "Ah...Raise shields and open a channel." She might even be able to secure a rescue….

"Command not authorized."

"Identify Doctor Molly Hooper, Ensign. The sole conscious officer aboard. Go to warp, any heading."

"Command not authorized.”

Another targeted phaser impact, and Molly could smell ozone as electricals fried and spat sparks above her head. "Then, complete commander’s previous order!" she gasped, panic overtaking any previous scruples. "F-fire photon torpedoes!"

"Command not authorized. Damage to secondary Bridge hull plating at eighty-nine percent. Hull breach warning."

No, what can I do? I can’t let it end like this, Molly thought. Khan had drifted up near the  apex of the room, well out of her reach unless she launched herself after his body. She might be able to revive him. She had to try.

She pushed herself carefully away from the Conn station, but caught hold of the command chair as flashing red lights from the display on the armrest caught her eye.

FIRE ALL WEAPONS, she read in a lower corner, with a blinking red button below. As another burst of phaser fire shook the _Vengeance_ , Molly wrenched herself closer, reached down, and tapped the red rectangle.

The _Vengeance_ rumbled, and a hellish storm of fire rained down upon the Romulan vessel. Molly watched the viewscreen numbly as the gigantic starship’s weapons tore open the central section of the scout ship. Explosive decompression sent several bodies, tiny against the gray-green hull, hurtling into space before the warp drive exploded and the Romulan ship disappeared in a cloud of plasma and metallic sparks.

"Bravo, Molly," she heard above her, and in her shock she let go of the command chair. Twisting her body, batting her floating hair out of her face, she turned as best she could.

Khan floated above her, one hand gripping a narrow pipe overhead. His eyes were perfectly lucid, focused on her now in cold amusement. He stretched idly, his pale body stunning against the dark, sparking shell of the ceiling, and Molly swallowed. Her adrenaline was fading, and she was again conscious of her heat, still burning on her skin, in her belly.

“Shields up. Cancel induced overload of Bridge lighting,” he said carelessly, shaking drops of blood from his own hand. Molly went cold.

"As I'd hoped, you are indeed a superior woman, with stunning potential," he continued, his icy, beautiful eyes meeting hers. “And it was well worth the slight damage to my ship to watch you make your first kill.” 

Molly could not help but moan as horror and arousal both arose to war inside her. Khan smiled. 

“Now,” he said, pushing himself down off the ceiling. In midair he caught her around the waist, then crushed her against his body. “Kiss me. My beautiful murderer.”


	5. Gravity

Me miserable! which way shall I fly  
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?  
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;  
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,  
Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide,  
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.  
John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

********

Molly lay with her head propped on one hand and watched Khan where he lay sleeping, his long limbs tangled in the sheets of the wide bed, his still face touched with ruddy light. Broodingly, Molly turned her gaze to the sullen red proto-star that glowed like a hearth outside the wide windows of the captain's quarters. 

To hide his stolen ship from more pursuers, Khan had used the time between their couplings to guide the _Vengeance_ deep into a nebula and into the accretion disk of a still-forming solar system, where they would stay, he said, until they were done mating. The monstrous ship now orbited the dull-red infant star, floating alongside dust clouds, chunks of rock, and swirling gases excited to incandescence. 

If the _Vengeance_ remained here long enough, Molly thought, it would be pulled into one of the gathering clots of rocky and gaseous material that would someday become the system's planets. Or perhaps it would even fall inward, pulled toward the kindling inferno at the center of the system. The ship's mighty frame would be torn asunder by the riptide of gravity, its hull plating charred and disintegrated by primal fire. 

Not a bad grave, as graves go, Molly reflected. 

She could kill him now where he lay, if only she had something sharp to hand. A vertical slice to the jugular vein, there where it fluttered at the side of his lovely throat. A long spike, punched deeply into one of his mesmerizing predator's eyes. And then Khan would be dead, and Molly's hands would be soaked in more blood, his blood. Unable to command the ship, or even to set a distress beacon, Molly would find herself alone until old age or madness ended her life. The _Vengeance_ would become a tomb dedicated to its own name, mechanically maintaining orbit until, after an age, its fuel was spent and gravity gently, inexorably beckoned the ship into its last, downward spiral. 

Khan's eyes opened and flickered to Molly's face. Silently he enfolded her in his arms and drew her in, and Molly closed her eyes against the red light and opened her mouth greedily to his kiss. 

In these moments, Molly was his, completely. Even in the minutes after he'd purred the word “murderer” into her ear, she could say nothing, do nothing but submit to the press of his hands on her breasts, her belly, as he had turned her floating body around, gripping her from behind and slipping that delicious Alpha's cock inside her once more. 

Their second mating had been a long, slow ordeal, hampered as they were by the lack of gravity, the absence of any force beyond that of Khan's own muscles to crush their bodies together with the pressure they both craved. He'd wrapped one corded arm around her torso, gripping a breast with that hand, while the other arm locked her bottom against his pelvis, his hand on her mound giving him precious leverage to thrust slowly, steadily into her. Molly had wailed, reaching back to hold him to her, the pleasure veering perilously close to misery; she'd ached for harder thrusts even as her oversensitive sex had throbbed with the crushing pressure of his fingers.

After an eternity, after he'd once again forced his knot inside her, white droplets in the air had joined the red of his blood, as weightless as their bodies where they hovered between the tilting surfaces of the Bridge. Locked together, her long hair waving gently around their heads as if caught up in an impalpable ocean, Khan and Molly had gazed into the endless starfield as it seemed to slowly rotate with the slight momentum of their bodies. Time and again, Khan had filled Molly's belly with his semen as they'd spun, helpless in the power of natural forces until they were allowed to slip apart. 

In those moments, she belonged to him. But after they'd parted, when he'd taken her by the hand and propelled them both down endless corridors (avoiding the turbolifts with the unpredictable effects of their acceleration), Molly's thoughts turned inward again, toward taking her revenge, toward snatching back her freedom. 

He'd made her do murder, Molly thought as Khan showed her how to push off the floors, ceilings and bulkheads to soar thrillingly through the air toward their destination, the gravity generator. She remembered how he'd deceived her, overloading the Bridge's overhead lights to make sparks and smoke, purposely dropping the shields to give the Romulans an opening to retaliate. And he had pretended to be knocked unconscious, just to see what she'd do. Even the Bridge's hull plating could be easily repaired, he'd mentioned to her as they traveled. He'd designed the Bridge shielding with many extra plates that could slide into position, the _Vengeance_ shedding the damaged plates into space like a shark casting off old teeth. 

And so Molly had eyed the case of tools he'd taken from a storage locker as they drew near the gravity generator. As he'd opened the generator's cover and examined the scorched and melted components, the mangled housing, she had looked into the toolcase and mused over what she could do with a steel prybar, a slender probe, or even a coil of fiber cable. 

She had nowhere to hide such a windfall, however, and after this long her heat was once more beginning its insistent, prickling pressure. Khan had handily repaired the damage with a speed that astounded Molly, setting the device to activate ten minutes after he closed the cover, at which time they were hovering hand in hand above the great bed in the captain's quarters.

When the gravity had come on, they'd fallen onto the bed, and Khan had pushed Molly down and fucked her, using all his body weight to drive them tightly together, until she had begged helplessly for his knot. He'd filled her belly once again, soaking the sheets and pinning her jealously underneath his body even after his swelling had subsided, letting her up only when she had cried with hunger. 

While she was devouring the food he'd retrieved from the replicator, Khan had draped his long body onto the chair at the captain's desk and pondered data from stellar cartography, finally entering a certain heading into the navigational computer and ordering the powerful warp drive to life. 

And now here they were, the _Vengeance_ set adrift around the dim star in an immense ring of colliding matter, all but invisible to any ship that happened to be passing through the system. And Molly, trapped with this beautiful demon, had found herself forced to choose between trying to kill him now, or putting up a front of acquiescence. Accepting death, or playing a long game. 

“How much longer will my heat last?” she murmured as his mouth traveled down her throat, ever downward. 

“Until it's done,” Khan said against one rosy nipple. “Three days, perhaps four. Until it's done.”

Molly sighed as his clever fingers pinched at the tender tips of her breasts; his mouth lavishing kisses on her belly before sliding down once again. 

As his tongue curled against her clitoris, Molly trembled, and spoke. “Khan...” she breathed. “I'm not a murderer.”

“Mmm.” His deep voice tickled her pussy. 

“You deceived me. You left me no choice,” she sighed, arching her back. 

His laughter against her, and her soft moan. With a final swipe of his tongue, he lifted his mouth away.

“You could have chosen to give up. To let the Romulans destroy us rather than take their lives. And killed me, your enemy, into the bargain. Made the righteous choice, the choice that would have left you dead. The weak choice...” And Khan sealed his wet mouth to her pussy again. 

Molly drew her legs up and buried her fingers in his thick black hair, heavy with sweat. 

“My enemy,” she sighed. No, Molly, don't say such things...remember....

“And the father of your unborn child,” he murmured, his hands gripping her thighs, pressing them farther open. 

Molly tossed her head from side to side. “No, I can't have children...They told me...”

“You can now, with me. And you will.”

“A baby,” Molly gasped. Her fingers left his hair and strayed over her belly. His hand followed and rested on top of hers. 

“Mine,” Khan agreed. “My child. First of my seed in this new century.”

A child, a baby. A baby in her arms after all these empty years. And the father, this genetic miracle, this murdering angel, who would not hesitate to take her baby from her.

But she would need him, she needed the ship to escape him...No longer an option, to kill him now, to take her empty victory and embrace a lonely death, here in this dark nebula.

Her long game...it grew ever longer. She whimpered as he slid cool fingers into her cunt. 

“No, no, it hurts,” she moaned. “I'm sore...”

“I know,” he murmured, twisting his hand in her. After a long moment, he drew his fingers out and swirled the wet tips of them around the puckered hole in her bottom. 

“Khan,” she cried softly. “Please.” 

“Turn,” he whispered, one fingertip prying her open and slipping inside. “On your knees.” 

Moaning at the slick movement of his fingers in her little opening, Molly clambered as best she could until she was on hands and knees on the soft bed. Khan positioned himself behind her and slid his cock into her aching pussy, his fingers in her bottom sliding ever deeper. And in spite of the soft, warm hurt in her cunt that caressed its way up her spine, Molly braced her body, pushed back onto his cock, his violating fingers, and cried for more. 

*********

Later, Khan sat with his back against the heavy glass of the window, his silhouette dark against the baleful light of the accretion disk. 

Across from him, Molly lay facing up, her body bathed in the star's glare as she stared up at the vaulted, lightless ceiling. Her hands clutched at her belly, clenching and unclenching slowly. 

“Khan,” she ventured. “What did you mean when you said this child would be the first of this century? Did you have children...before?”

“I was once wealthy with children. Seventy-four sons and eighty-five daughters. And ten more on the way.”

“What?” Molly turned to look at him, but his face was in shadow against the red glow. “How...how could you have so many...? Oh,” she said, understanding.

“Yes. I had one hundred five Omega females at my call the day I left my home for the last time.”

Molly looked at the ceiling again. “Wives?”

“Concubines.” 

“So...you didn't really know them, or love them.”

“I loved them.”

A silence fell heavily into the air. Molly inhaled, and her hands on her belly grew still. Finally, she said, “Something...happened to them, didn't it.”

“My Omegas and my children died when a bomb was dropped on my private residence. My enemies waited until I was away to kill them all.”

Molly had nothing to say. After a moment, Khan continued, his voice halting, choked. 

“They hit twenty-three other cities as well, all the capitol cities of the Augments, while we were at a summit meeting. That was the day we decided to leave Earth on a sleeper ship. It has been hundreds of years in your history. For me, thirteen waking months.”

Was Khan weeping? He was. Molly saw a tear catch the ruddy light as it dropped from his chin. 

No, Molly thought. He was her captor, her enemy, whom she was using to ride out her heat, whom she hated. She would not give in to this mad urge to go to him, to kiss the wound of this immense grief, this immeasurable loss. So many children, women, dead just because they'd been his. And on the hangar deck, she remembered, seventy-two more broken hearts slept, their pain suspended in time, the passage of centuries bringing no healing. 

Sympathy for the devil, Molly thought. 

The star dimmed behind them as immense chunks of rock drifted between the red inferno and the _Vengeance._ Neither of them said anything for a long while. 

“Molly,” Khan said finally. “Why did you join Starfleet?”

Molly frowned. “The usual. To explore strange new worlds...” 

“No,” said Khan. “Really.”

“Well,” she said. What was the harm in telling him? She'd give him something true, lull him into sympathy. “I guess I wanted to get away from Earth.”

“Why?” His face was still invisible in the darkness. 

“If you had atavistic---well, if you were an Omega in my world, you wouldn't need to ask me that.”

“Omegas are no longer prized. You said before.”

“No,” she replied. “We're treated with disgust, really. As though we were born with hair all over our bodies, or with tails. Except instead of a tail, we have a sexual deviation that reminds people of the way humans used to be. Before we cleaned up our animalistic streak.” 

Khan stirred, crossed his lean legs. “What about you? You took heat suppressants. You could pass for a Beta.” 

“No. Word got out at the university when someone at the pharmacy had...gossiped. I was the talk of the school for a while.” Molly closed her eyes. “Even if I'd left, the rumor would have followed me. And I'd worked so hard to get there.”

“A top university,” Khan said. 

“The top university, really,” Molly told him. “This was when I was preparing for specialty training. My adviser...I wanted to study pathology, but he insisted that it would go best for me if I pursued reproductive genetics instead.” She looked at the ceiling again. “He said I had a responsibility to help eradicate my little problem from the population.”

“That was foolish of him. You would have been a good pathologist. You speak softly, Molly, and you seem fragile at first glance, but there is a darkness in you, and a strength. You're not afraid to look at death.”

Molly looked at him where he sat, perfectly still in his reptilian way, against the hot light. Don't you stare into my head, she thought at him, wanting to strike his shadowed face. You abducted me, got inside my body, into my womb, and you won't take any more of me for yourself. I'll kill you, I'll bring you down, she thought, and then she remembered: murderer. 

She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw so tightly that her head began to ache.

“And what about the men, those little Beta men?” Khan continued, his tones lowering in a way that now set off warning bells in Molly's mind. “Who touched you? Before I did?”

His voice...so compelling. When he spoke to her like that she could forget, forget everything else...

“Only two. Ever,” she whispered. “The first one...he didn't know, I didn't tell him. The second...it was after I left school. I told him, and he stayed for a month. Then he said he had a fantasy. He wanted me to go off my heat suppressants so he could...”

Khan hissed in disgust. “So he could find out how spectacularly inadequate he was.” He stirred, crawled slowly toward her across the bed. 

“I said that I wouldn't be his...his little bitch in heat. And he got angry, and he told...everyone. All our friends. What I was. And lied, told them all that I'd asked him to find five more men, that I wanted...”

“The filth,” Khan spat, gathering her into his arms, where she gasped to inhale his musky scent. “No more than an animal himself. An Omega's heats are a sacred surrender, Molly. To yield to desire, to the power of life itself, is to be fully awake and in the moment. And by her scent, the Omega leads her Alpha into this dance, this mysterious place, where he cannot go without her. Just as a male cannot make a child,” Khan said, turning her onto her belly, “without his female.”

He mounted her then, pushing her legs open with his own, and pierced her deeply with that heavenly cock. Molly cried out eagerly and lifted her hips to take more of him. 

“Only one man for you now, little Omega,” Khan breathed as he ground a moan out of Molly with each stroke. “Only me. Say it.”

“Only you, Khan,” Molly replied, and sobbed into their bed. Her fist pushed hard into the mattress.


	6. Ascension

Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n.  
John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

**** 

Khan's long white hands stroked the metal of the cryotube absently, his eyes fixed on the sleeping face before him. He pressed his lips together; so eager to hold her, to speak to her again. But he needed to be patient just a little longer. 

Juno, it would always be Juno. The last he'd put to sleep, the first he'd awaken. His loyal Juno, clear-thinking Juno, sister of his heart. 

Ten hours ago he'd adjusted the proportion of oxygen in the unit that regulated her blood gases, and set the cryotube to warm her slowly. Nine hours ago, he'd released certain chemicals into her bloodstream, then watched the indicators carefully to monitor re-perfusion of her brain and other vital organs, the slowly increasing strength of her heartbeat. Five hours ago, he'd made adjustments to the delicate dance of increasing activity in her cells, coaxed along the intricate series of hormonal signals that were bringing her out of hibernation. Two hours ago, a tiny hit of adrenaline when her heart rate had failed to increase for a time.

It was going well. Soon Juno's body would settle into a normal sleep, and then he had only to wait until she awakened naturally. Khan was determined that his face would be the first thing she'd see. 

As for Gabriel, Khan had left his revival in the capable hands of Molly, his little Omega. He'd shown her the sequence, and had stepped over several times to confirm that she was following it to the letter. Brilliant Molly, so quick to learn and understand....

Days ago, Molly's heat had ended, and he could finally bear spending more than an hour at a time without burying himself in her body. So at long last, Khan had turned his full attention to repairing the proprioception subroutine. This time, he'd made sure to build in redundancies and other defenses that would make it nearly impossible to repeat the sabotage. The large desk display in the captain's quarters was filled every day with endless lines of scrolling code. 

He'd kept Molly with him at every moment, quietly locking the door to the captain's quarters. Until the proprioception subroutine was repaired, letting her out of his sight was a risk. To his mild surprise, however, she did not try to escape; she never even went near the door. 

For three days, he had bent all his attention and monumental intelligence to the repair. At first, Molly had spent her time looking out the great window at the baleful protostar, and going to the replicator for frequent meals and snacks. Khan felt guilt burn in his chest every time he remembered how he'd starved her for days, his little Omega who was already so slim for her height. She'd brought him food, too, silently offering him trays and cups before returning to their bed to doze, or to look out the wide window once more. 

After a time, Molly began to play with the replicator, scrolling through the pattern library and calling up utensils, drapes of cloth, grooming tools, even small sculptures. She dematerialized most of the objects, but eventually began to replicate clothing for herself. She chose bright, cheerful colors, Khan had noted, absently admiring the silken flow of the dress she currently wore: it fell to her feet in soft gathers that darkened from light to dark pink, with clusters of embroidery above her breasts that looked like fruit or flowers. It would show off her swelling belly magnificently, when the time came. 

And every evening, after he'd spent many hours at work, Molly would arise from the deep bathtub in the next room, dry herself slowly, and creep toward him on her little feet, snaking her arms around his neck in the most winning fashion. And he'd slap down the display and turn to her, scooping her up and bearing her toward their great bed, where he reveled in her for hours before succumbing to the deep, restorative sleep he sorely needed after days and weeks of fighting, of seething tension. 

Still she continued to impress him. By hell, the Omega had left her heat well behind, but still she desired him ardently, even though he could not summon the large knot he'd given her before, nor soak the bed with his semen. But now their couplings were slower, more exploratory, without the urgency that heat always precipitated. 

They had feasted on each other's skin, moving leisurely in the red glare, slipping fingers and tongues everywhere in ways he'd never imagined. Of course, she'd tried to take him into her mouth, as she would have done with the small Beta men she'd known before. But even after that feat had proved impossible, she'd persisted in this act, licking and stroking him into a frenzy approaching that of his response to Omega heat. He'd actually heard a deep growl tear out of his throat as he'd pushed her hands away and pulled her hips into the position for mating. 

And by the third day, when Khan was finally nearing completion of his programming task, he had started to notice her scent again.

She had been walking behind him, on her way to the bathtub; he'd turned his head to inhale the tiny breeze of her passing, and smiled to himself. That night, as he'd lain draped over her back, with his cock moving inside her, he'd purred into her ear. 

“Your scent has changed, Molly. Without a doubt, you are pregnant with my child.”

And she had moaned and climaxed under him, and Khan knew then that Molly was his, completely. First of his concubines, first mother of his new heirs. He'd spread his seed across the galaxy, but she, she was his first step.

The next morning, the subroutine was finally repaired, restoring his full control. He had opened the door and immediately walked to a turbolift, determined that his top priority now was to pay a visit to the hangar deck and check on his precious cryotubes. Molly had drifted after him, her colorful silks floating behind her, her hair loose, just as he'd ordered. Soft, natural, simple. So lovely to him. 

He had not planned to need her today, but he certainly did not mind her presence. And, he reasoned, the doctor had to be growing at least a little bit bored by now. She'd submitted to him beautifully; perhaps she was trustworthy after all, and trainable. 

Khan had proudly shown Molly the cryotubes, walking among them and telling her something of his friends. It had felt good to say their names aloud to another person, to tell her that he planned to awaken Juno and Gabriel first. His right and left hands, he liked to call them, though more properly they'd been called viceroys, back when he'd ruled over a quarter of Earth.

Molly had frowned a little as she walked, deep in thought. Presently, she'd asked him questions related to her professional function as his reproductive geneticist, and Khan took this as another encouraging sign. 

“I see males and females here,” she'd said. “More males, unfortunately. Some of the Alphas won't have Omega mates.”

“None of them will have Omega mates. They're all Alphas, Molly, both male and female.”

“All of them?” Her eyes had widened. 

“Yes. And we must reproduce amongst ourselves. This is what I need your help with...it's not only because of our Augment heritage, though that complicates things as well. But it's not as hopeless as it may seem. Male alphas produce copious sperm during their fertile times,” and he'd smiled as Molly blushed deeply, “and female alphas produce multiple ovae, so conception is certainly possible. But as I mentioned the other day, it is Omegas' heats that lead Alphas into their fertile times. And even if two Alphas were somehow stimulated to become fertile, then try to mate, their anatomical idiosyncrasies would make forming a proper knot connection...very difficult, or even impossible.”

Molly had accepted all this, and his explanation of the knot of the rarer female Alpha, a swelling ring that held her Omega male deep inside her. 

“You see why I need you,” he'd told her. “We'll need to induce fertility chemically, then harvest cells for _in vitro_ conception, and select the fittest embryos. Alpha females habitually carry fraternal twins, so we should have a nice little village established within several decades.”

She'd turned to him then, looking him over with a critical eye. “How old are you? You look as though you are in your mid-to-late thirties. Are all your people similar in age?” 

Khan let his chest swell; he knew his own beauty. “Yes, similar. But our lifespans are meant to be twice that of a non-Augment human. Though, of course, that has not yet been put to the test.”

He'd thought he'd caught an odd look in her eye then, but she simply asked, “Why don't you just find willing Omegas for your people to mate with? It would take time to identify and locate them among the population, especially if you are being clandestine, but...” 

Khan made an impatient gesture, but Molly nattered on. “That way you would not have the burden of doing everything artificially. And your group is really far too small to establish a viable population, Khan. You need the genetic diversity, badly.”

“No, what I need is to breed leaders, Molly. No room for the lackluster genes of ordinary Omegas, no room for guesswork when it comes to our heirs. Not this time. All of these children must be full Augments. I will not allow our bloodline to dwindle before we come back to power. Time enough to seek out Omegas for pleasure when we are well on our way to rebuilding our empire.”

Molly's hands had gone to her own belly then, her eyes shadowed. Khan took her by the shoulders. 

“You are a superior woman, Molly, even if you are not an Augment. And I am Khan, first among the best. Never doubt that this child, our child, will one day rule worlds.”

*******

The Med Bay was nearly silent but for the tiny noises of the monitors and the breath of four humans: two who slept, and two who waited.

After many hours, a pair of eyes fluttered open, startlingly green in a deep-brown face. 

“Juno,” Khan said, leaning over her, stroking her black curls gently. She focused on him; her full lips parted. 

“How...how long?” Oh, her voice was weak, but so sweet to his ears.

“Too long,” Khan told her. “Centuries. But now it's time to awaken. Our day has finally come.” 

Juno blinked, and her brow furrowed. “I can't...move.”

“You'll need time. Take some water, my heart.” Khan brought the glass to her lips and glanced at the monitors; Juno's heart was beating well, her temperature very close to normal. With an Augment's extraordinary powers of recovery, she would be up and about in a day or so, back to full vigor in two. 

Juno sipped, then turned her head a little and seemed to really see him. “Oh, Khan,” she breathed, her eyes open wide. “What happened to you?...Your eyes...”

“I'll tell you everything. Soon.” Khan said. “Sleep now.”

“Sleep,” Juno said, her eyes closing again as she drew a breath. “Oh...I smell Omega...a female. Pregnant...”

“Yes,” Khan told Juno as her face relaxed into slumber. “She's mine.”

******

A few meters away, Molly lifted her head to listen to their quiet voices. The first one had awoken, then; a beautiful, powerful woman with a face that bespoke royalty, even in sleep. Khan had spoken words that were more loving than Molly had expected to hear, and she fought back a twinge of jealousy. 

Remember, she told herself. Remember the long game. 

Khan was breathtakingly intelligent, strong, and beautiful. And sex with him was...transcendent. But he was still her abductor, her captor. Not truly her lover, and certainly not her master, despite her show of acquiescence. And now he was beginning to awaken his allies, more superhumans like herself, and she'd failed to find much in the way of improvised weaponry in the replicator pattern library. But still, she'd find her moment. No matter how long it took. 

Yes. When her moment came, she would not hesitate. She touched her belly tenderly.

A monitor beeped; she looked down at this Gabriel, whom Khan had tasked her to revive. An excellent sign, that; Khan was coming to trust her. But to keep that trust, she'd need to make sure this tall, elegant, blindingly blond Augment came out of his long hibernation without a hitch. 

All was going well, she saw. He was breathing deeply now, his chest rising and falling. The monitor had been signaling increased brain activity. He was not awake yet; perhaps he was dreaming, Molly thought, seeing his eyes move beneath ice-white lids. 

And then those shockingly black eyes opened, and focused on her face. Molly thought of calling for Khan, but the words died on her lips when Gabriel spoke.

“Omega. I thought I'd...dreamed your scent...”

That still face had come alive with expression as the mind inside kindled back to life. Tilting his head ever so slightly, the Alpha gave her a dreamy smile. 

“Gabriel,” she said, caught a little off guard. “Ah, you've been asleep for well over two-and-a-half centuries---”

“Who...are you?” Gabriel asked. 

Well, that was a good question. What should she tell him? That she was a doctor, and not to worry? That she was Khan's Omega? His lids were growing heavy again. 

“Molly,” she said finally. 

“Molly,” Gabriel repeated. “Unbonded...and so lovely. Am I...in heaven?” His smile widened, even as those dark eyes drifted closed.

She couldn't help it; she laughed. Oh, this was a wily one. 

He slid into sleep again, the expressive spirit she'd glimpsed relaxing again into peace. Molly looked up, her smile sliding off her face; Khan was stalking over. He bent and examined Gabriel, looked over his monitors. 

“He woke up for a moment,” Molly told him. 

“I know,” Khan said. “I heard.” He was frowning.

Molly swallowed, not meeting his eyes when she spoke. “What did he mean? When he said...”

“Unbonded?” Khan stood. “Bonding is an antiquated custom. No longer relevant for our purposes.”

“How could Gabriel tell? By my scent?”

“Your scent, yes. Though I would hope Gabriel also scented me on you, and knew whose Omega you are.” And with a last glance at Gabriel's monitors, Khan took her hand and stepped back, pulling her toward a hospital bed. “Come, Molly. They'll sleep for a few hours longer. It's been a long day, and I want you.”

*****

A day later, Khan faced Juno and Gabriel from his place at the head of the conference table. The windowless room throbbed faintly with the pulse of the warp drive; they were finally leaving the infant star system behind for the cold vastness of uncharted space. 

His viceroys had spent the last twenty-four hours taking sips of nutrient-fortified glucose solution, sleeping a little more but mostly reading, orienting themselves to their new century. Khan had sat by their beds, and then, as they swiftly gained strength, by their chairs, guiding them and answering questions as they scanned their displays, reading far faster than his words could be spoken. 

Khan swelled with pride at the speed of their learning, the intelligence of their queries. After a year spent designing and overseeing the construction of the _Vengeance_ in the tiresome company of endless engineers, astrophysicists, and that execrable Admiral Marcus, it was unspeakably refreshing to be with his own kind again. 

Now, finally, he'd gathered them here to tell them his plans for the Augments' future. But Gabriel did not, evidently, see the logic of Khan's vision. 

“With each other. You expect me to breed with my sisters? Somehow?” Gabriel's fist impacted the table. Juno's eyes flickered between Gabriel and himself. 

“Don't indulge in imprecision, Gabriel,” Khan said, meeting his gaze steadily. “None of us have parents in the first place, nor are any of our base individuals genetically close. There will be no consanguinity.”

“We're all Alphas, Khan,” Gabriel said, his mouth tight. “This is preposterous. Absurd. We can't form a colony that way.”

“After some few decades we will be several hundred strong, ourselves and our heirs,” Khan replied. “We must gather our strength before we take back what is ours by right. Besides,” Khan said, “we have the help of our expert, Doctor Hooper.”

“Who happens to be an Omega herself,” Gabriel said, his black eyes glinting. “Your Omega. And pregnant.”

“Gabriel.” Khan let his voice carry a note of warning. 

“You speak to me of indulgence, you who were always so deep in your harem,” Gabriel continued, rising from his seat. “Where is my Omega in this new century? Why should you get to spend an entire heat with your prize---I know you did, you stopped in that star system for quite a while---and then inform all the other Augments that they have to breed with each other? They won't accept it, Khan.”

“They will. And I will participate, of course. In the breeding program.”

“Oh, I've no doubt you'll do your duty along with the rest of us. Keeping the line pure, as you say. But I don't see you scrupling to sire a child on this woman, a non-Augment, whom I believe you abducted without her consent. Please correct me if I am wrong on that point, my honorable leader.” Gabriel paced the room, dragging a hand through his white-blond hair. 

Khan felt his rage kindle. “Gabriel, I thought her a Beta when I took her. I have told you of this.” 

“Yes, but it certainly didn't take long before she happened to go into heat, did it. Quite a coincidence for an annual occasion. Wouldn't you say?”

Gabriel's face was growing red. Juno was silent, unreadable. 

“Sit down, Gabriel,” Khan ground out, holding his control. “This outburst is not worthy of you. Of us.”

“Do you know what's unworthy, Khan?” Gabriel placed a hand flat on the table, leaning toward Khan's seat. “The fact that you claim this woman as yours alone, that you clearly admire and esteem her, that you've recklessly made her pregnant, but still, she remains Unbonded to you. I could scarcely believe what my nose was telling me.” His mouth turned down. “You haven't told her, have you.” 

Khan arose, walked to the other male, and with a deliberate, unhurried movement, took him by the throat. 

“Gabriel. Are you challenging me?” Khan pitched his voice low.

Gabriel swiftly turned his black eyes downward. “No, Khan,” he choked out. His hands remained at his sides, and after a moment, Khan was satisfied. He removed his hand. 

“There will be no more discussion of my Omega, excepting her professional capacity,” Khan declared. “What I choose to do regarding her is my own business.” Returning to the head of the table, he turned his eyes on the other Augment in the room. 

“Juno. You're very quiet. I don't like it when you're quiet. Tell us your thoughts.”

Juno stirred. “I have nothing to say regarding this woman,” she said to the room, folding her hands on the table. “Gabriel, I strongly advise that you listen to Khan, and do not question his decisions in this matter.”

Gabriel sat heavily in his chair. His hands clenched on the table. 

“I do have an observation, however,” Juno said. “About something we have not yet touched upon.” 

Khan leaned forward. “Continue.”

“Khan, we're on a stolen starship, the biggest and most powerful ever built. And you, you have killed Starfleet personnel, thus making yourself doubly a fugitive from the United Federation of Planets, have you not?”

“I have. But I would not be concerned, Juno. This ship can take us ten times farther than Starfleet has ever dreamed of exploring.”

“Security by obscurity, then. Not your usual style, Khan.” Juno's gaze measured him.

“Please, sister, if you feel you could have obtained a more favorable result from the situation in which I found myself, along with all your cryotubes, I'd love to hear your insight.”

“A futile exercise in speculation; it's done, pointless to belabor it. I'm merely making the observation that we are being hunted, however ineptly. And your encounter with the Romulan Star Empire suggests that the search has been broadened, likely under treaty. Such treaties are often precipitated by threat of war, Khan.” 

“War with the Klingon Empire, yes,” Khan agreed. “For which this ship was expressly designed. We do not lack for speed, defense, or weaponry. We can outrun this war handily, and win any challenge we may meet as we travel.” 

“For how long, Khan? War has unpredictable effects, as we've seen. Interplanetary wars, even more so, without doubt.” Juno's piercingly green eyes wandered over the fittings of the dark room, the glowing displays. “And Starfleet may have lost this ship, but they retain your design, your application of the new technology. Surely you realize we will not be safe for long, no matter how far we run.”

“Starfleet has better things to do with their time and resources, for many reasons, only some of which you've mentioned. They will stop hunting us, Juno. And if they do happen to find us, we will be ready.”

“I hope you are correct, Khan. For all our sakes.” Unsmiling, Juno held his gaze. 

******

An hour or so later, just after Khan had brought the briefing to a close, Molly slipped out of the narrow ventilation conduit into a larger access tunnel. Stooping, she caught up the silky gown from where it had lain, neatly arranged, on the tunnel floor. Dropping the flowing fabric over her head, Molly pulled the dress into place and crouched by the hatch cover, listening. 

Just as she'd hoped, Molly soon heard a lone set of footsteps sounding heavily in the corridor outside, and a whiff of Alpha male reached her nose---not Khan. Steeling herself for the great risk she was about to take, Molly pulled away the cover and stepped into the corridor. She turned quickly to replace the hatch, then faced Gabriel, where he stood speechless. 

“He hasn't told me...what?” Molly asked, placing a hand on Gabriel's chest.


	7. Covenant

What though the field be lost?  
All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will,  
And study of revenge, immortal hate,  
And courage never to submit or yield.  
John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

****

Khan lounged against a Bridge console near Juno where she sat in the command chair, satisfied to have come to the end of another long day of teaching and planning with her and Gabriel. The latter, he'd set to the task of learning stellar cartography and planetary classification in preparation for scouting out suitable star systems; the former had joined him on the Bridge for training on how to maneuver the starship, travel at warp, and handle the weapons systems. 

Juno would have made an excellent first officer, Khan reflected, had they been true members of Starfleet. As ever, she made him proud. She even appreciated the sardonic enjoyment Khan derived from retaining the black uniform of a commanding officer. 

“Rather saturnine, Khan,” Juno smiled, finally warming up a little after her frank criticism the day before. “I like the effect.”

“Do you really?” Khan asked with a smile. He stretched ostentatiously. “What do you say, then, Juno? Will your first twins be mine?” 

Juno shrugged and crossed her arms. “I suppose that if I must bear children by you hulking Alpha males, the first set might as well be yours.”

“Oh come, now, sister,” Khan said lowly, sliding close and touching her face. “I've missed you terribly. There's nothing stopping us, here and now. It can be just as it once was between us.” 

“Not at all, _brother,_ ” Juno retorted. “Need I remind you that the torrid encounter will take place in a glass dish, not in our program dormitory? Besides,” she said, sliding a hand down his chest, “there is your Omega to consider, is there not?”

“She is mine,” Khan said, gripping one full breast. “I am not hers.” 

Juno chuckled. “You may wish to remind Gabriel once more of that pretty belief of yours,” she said against his neck, and Khan's hands stopped moving.

“What do you mean by that?” he growled. 

“Ah, you're snarling like a real Alpha now that there's an Omega involved,” Juno laughed. “Proper beast, you. Go on, let's see you strut and howl a bit now.” She drew back and folded her arms again. 

“Juno!”

“I've noticed some interesting scents in the air.” Juno's green eyes were cool. “And I know that Gabriel was not at his science station for several hours in the middle of the day. Make of that what you will.”

****

Molly was splashing in her bath when Khan stalked into the captain's quarters. The bathroom door slid open too slowly for his taste; he shoved at it and advanced upon her. At the sight of his face, she dropped her wet cloth and huddled into the far side of the tub, her heart in her throat. 

“Molly! Get out, now,” Khan roared. He pointed to the floor. “Out of the bath.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, Molly saw Juno appear in the doorway, where she leaned, her arms across her chest. “Khan,” she said. “Molly is Unbonded. No matter what happened today, she's done nothing wrong. Remember that.”

Khan exhaled hard and closed his eyes. When he spoke, it was with barely contained rage. 

“Molly. Were you with Gabriel today?” 

Struck to her heart with fear, Molly froze. Oh, she could hide from pursuit, think on her feet, and cope with the terror of being prey, but the moment anyone shouted directly at her...

She swallowed. Best to tell the truth.

“Yes,” she replied. 

Khan growled, and her blood turned to ice. “What happened?” he bit out. 

“He...talked to me,” Molly said, drawing her knees up to her chest in the rapidly cooling bathwater. 

“What did he say?” Khan fixed his icy eyes on Molly's bloodless face. 

“He told me...that I deserved better than you. And if you wouldn't Bond with me...he certainly would. That it was up to me.” Molly said, her heart in her throat, fearing for Gabriel.

“Did...he...touch...you?” Khan's face was turning a terrifying color. Molly closed her eyes. 

“He touched my face,” she said in a rush. “And he...kissed me.”

And he had. There in a secluded corner of the ship, Gabriel had given Molly his winning smile, black eyes twinkling as he'd lifted her face and dropped his mouth over hers. There had been a promise in that act: his strength, his protection. Escape, should she choose to snatch it. Their stolen kiss had been a seal of covenant between them, her pledge that she would walk the long, difficult road they'd just mapped out together....

Khan was still as a snake for a long moment, then he turned on his heel and left the bathroom, and the captain's quarters, without another word. Juno followed him, but not before turning an unreadable expression on Molly. 

She sat still for a moment, wanting to break down and weep, but soon jumped out of the bath and snatched at a warm dressing gown. Wrapping it around herself, she bounded into the corridor and after Khan and Juno, leaving a little trail of water. She had no trouble following them; Khan's scent was hot on the air. 

When she came upon them again, Khan had dragged Gabriel out of his seat at the science station by his hair and was screaming into his face. 

“She is mine, Gabriel,” Khan roared. “Mine! With child, by me. You will not talk to her. You will not touch her again.” He wrenched Gabriel down onto the floor, where he sprawled at Khan's feet, a rivulet of blood staining his pale hair. 

Ignoring his torn scalp, Gabriel picked himself up nimbly and faced Khan, his hands curling into fists. “She is not yours,” Gabriel growled back. For one moment, his black eyes flickered to Molly where she stood, clinging to the doorframe. “Her neck is unmarked, and her scent carries nothing of you. You have no claim on her body or her loyalty.”

“Gabriel, don't,” Juno snapped from her position near the opposite wall.

“Why won't you Bond with her, Khan?” Gabriel taunted. “She's the sole Omega we're likely to see for a long while, if you're to have your way, and I'll be far from the last to take an interest in her. So what is the great obstacle, then? Could it be that you know you did her a terrible wrong when you abducted her, when you took full advantage of her heat? Where's your much-vaunted pride, Khan? How the mighty have fallen.” And Gabriel spat at Khan's feet. 

Khan's great fist moved silently, but so swiftly that Molly was aghast. Blood sprayed across the science station as Gabriel reeled and fell heavily onto the floor. Khan stalked after him and stomped hard on the other man's chest, his black hair flying, and Molly heard ribs crack. Gabriel grunted, but incredibly, he had not finished his taunts. 

“Or could it be that you're afraid?” Gabriel sneered through the blood that was sluicing to the floor from his broken mouth. “Because you won't risk---”

“One more word, Gabriel,” Khan shouted, “and Augment brother or no, I will kill you. Believe it.” He kicked Gabriel down, set his boot on his throat, and pressed. 

“Khan,” Juno said. Panting, he looked at her where she stood, well back from the fight. She shook her head once. 

Reluctantly, Khan lifted his boot away. He turned his back on Gabriel, who slowly rose into a crouch. 

“You can continue your work on stellar cartography from the brig,” Khan said evenly. “Juno, see to it. And Gabriel,” he continued, looking at the other man over his shoulder, “You are right. You'll no doubt be overjoyed to hear that I concede your point: it's high time to Bond with my little Omega. I want there to be no further...mistakes of this kind. From any of the Augments, but most especially from you.”

Her heart filling her throat, Molly couldn't stop herself from looking at Gabriel. He was still on his knees, but had grown still as Khan spoke, his stricken eyes fixed on her face. Then, as Khan walked toward Molly and took her hand, Gabriel dropped his gaze to the floor. His hands spasmed at his sides. 

“Come, Molly,” Khan said. “Bed. Now.” And with a last venomous glance at Gabriel, he pulled her out of the room. Molly followed without resistance.

****

“On the bed,” Khan said. “Naked.” He pointed, and Molly dropped her robe and climbed onto the wide bed. Despite everything, her treacherous body was warming with anticipation. 

“I'm going to Bond with you now, Molly,” Khan told her. “Unless, I suppose, you have some objection.” The corners of his mouth turned down harshly; his eyes on her face were challenging. 

“No, Khan,” she said quietly. “Have you...done this before?” 

“I have not,” he replied. “Until now, never once in my life have I lacked for my choice of many Omegas. In the face of such variety, I never settled on one whom I wished to seal to myself.”

“So the Bond is...permanent?” 

“Yes,” Khan said. “I will always be in your blood. And you in mine.”

The long game...Khan had raised the stakes. Molly felt dread run cold through her bones, even as arousal kindled deep in her belly. 

“Do you love me, Molly?” 

Startled, Molly looked at his face; it was as cold, commanding, and starkly beautiful as ever. The face of the man who had brutally abducted her, then pulled her down into a dark realm of the most primal ecstasy. 

“Yes, Khan. I do love you,” Molly said. And though she was still playing her game, in that moment she truly did not know whether she lied. 

“Then kneel. Bottom in the air,” Khan directed, pulling off his shirt. “Keep your knees together this time. I want you tight.”

Molly scrambled to obey, her breath quickening with anxiety. Since her heat had ended, it had been difficult to take his size into herself; and now he wanted an even tighter fit? She hoped for gentleness; she knew he would give her none. 

Shedding the rest of his clothing onto the floor, Khan advanced upon her. He pressed on her back so that her belly dipped low and her shoulders and face rested on the bed. 

“Listen to me, Molly. You have two responsibilities. One, keep your knees tightly together, no matter what happens. And two, keep your hair away from your neck. Do you understand?” 

Molly nodded, scraping her wet hair aside and holding it with one hand, and Khan seemed satisfied. She glanced back; he was pulling on that heavy Alpha cock, which was swiftly coming to full tumescence. She faced the window again, her cheeks reddening. Even after all this time, Molly could barely look at it. Though she knew she could take it, had taken it many times, still she closed her eyes. 

Fear and arousal had become tightly entwined in her brain, Molly reflected as Khan climbed onto the bed behind her. She wondered if she'd ever come back from that, or if she even wanted to. 

She'd expected him to simply push inside, but shivered as his tongue swiped at her sex instead, swiftly jointed by his wicked fingers on her clit. Instinctively, she opened her legs the barest inch to invite him in more deeply. 

“Disobedience already,” Khan said. “All right. A little conditioning, then.” An impact, and Molly cried out into the bed; Khan had struck her bottom sharply. Then it happened again, and again. 

“No, Khan, please,” Molly gasped. “Please stop. It hurts.”

“Yes,” Khan growled. His hand came to rest on her burning bottom. “But your legs are together. Aren't they. You won't forget again.” And he landed one more spank, the hardest yet. 

“Oh! No, Khan, yes,” she sobbed. “Please, I'll be good. Just, please...I need you inside me.” She lifted her bottom, dipped her belly down lower. No more pain. If she had to go through with this, she would at least take her pleasure. 

“Very well,” Khan said, and Molly gave a long moan as he slowly, steadily, unstoppably filled her. “But know that I will not hesitate to discipline you even while I'm inside you. Now,” he whispered roughly into her ear, his body sealed against her back, his hot hands on both of her breasts, “keep those legs together.”

And Molly did, even when he set a rhythm that made Molly grit her teeth. Even when her legs began to ache, even when Khan gripped her hips and lifted her knees off the bed, his fingers surely leaving bruises. Even when he pushed her down into a near-fetal position, her body bent inward as tightly as she could bear while he squeezed her thighs between his muscled ones, piercing his way well inside her despite her protective position, his body covering hers almost entirely.

His teeth scraped against the back of her neck, and he let out a long, dark sound of need that made Molly's hair stand on end. His cock swelled in her. And though she'd been obediently holding her hair away from her neck, Khan gripped her wrist and tossed her hand aside. He gathered heavy handfuls of hair at the back of her head and pulled forward, forcing her to present her nape. 

“This is the point of no return, Molly,” Khan said against her neck, and again she felt his hot breath, his teeth. “You'll be mine, completely mine. And if Gabriel ever comes near you again, by our laws I will be within my rights to tear him apart. Open his belly,” Khan snarled, fucking into her faster and faster. “Crush his skull with my boot...”

Madman, Molly screamed in her mind. Killer. Butcher.

Khan set his teeth into the side of her neck, and ground his teeth together deep in her skin. And Molly's throat opened in a terrible cry that surely echoed down through the corridors. 

Khan's tongue dragged at the burning wound, and Molly felt a harsh sting, and then a rushing warmth that threaded throughout her body as if her blood were flammable and a fire was flashing into life along the lines of her veins. 

“God, Molly,” Khan panted, with a note of panic in his voice that Molly had never heard. “I'm ablaze. My body is...By hell, I think I'm actually going to knot you.”

Yes, his knot was swelling, shocking both of them, this far outside her heat. A sudden fear gripped her. “Khan. Khan. The baby. So much, so deep. Will it hurt the baby...?” 

“You can take this,” he bit out, his hands shaking on her hips. “I think...I think you may have to.” And he pushed, roaring, and Molly gave a thin wail, spending the little breath she had left as the knot seated itself in her. 

It was done. They were sealed together, and Molly wept with more than her ecstasy. 

For an uncountable time he held her there, rocking into her again and again, wringing more pleasure and still more tears out of her as the cold, nameless stars watched from the wide window.


	8. The Garden

Here at least  
we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built  
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:  
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice  
to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:  
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.  
John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

******

For the first time in many months, Molly heard the deep roar of atmosphere screaming around the shuttlecraft as it fell from orbit into the embrace of the unknown planet below. Actual air was burning around the shuttle, the ions of nitrogen and oxygen shredding themselves apart with the heat of their shuttle’s passage. Fire filled the windscreen and the narrow windows; Molly took a breath to calm herself, to remind herself that she was safe. Probably.

Well, perhaps not safe, but her true danger was not the violence of atmospheric entry. Molly looked past her stabilizer seat to the tall, dark man who sat beside her, his big hand possessively gripping her thigh as had been his wont these several months whenever they were close. And since Khan liked to keep Molly at his side at nearly every moment, she had grown accustomed to his constant touch. 

Strange what one could become accustomed to, Molly reflected. The shuttle jolted hard, and she gave a yelp, her hands reflexively clutching at her growing belly. 

“Quiet, Molly,” Khan said, stroking her leg. “The upper atmosphere is unusually turbulent. Slow the shuttle,” Khan shouted to the pilot. “My mate is growing uncomfortable.” 

“Aye, Khan,” the Augment Joaquin called back. “Hang on, Khatun,” he said to her. “A few minutes more.”

“Thanks, Joaquin,” Molly said, probably too softly to be heard; but such was her lot in life these days. Constantly surrounded by seventy-three Augments, Bonded mate to their forceful leader, Molly had grown quiet lately, turning her focus inward. While Khan shouted orders in council and the Augments’ endless debates raged over her head, Molly would sit in her place at Khan’s side, holding her belly and contemplating the life growing silently inside her. 

She rubbed wearily at the bite on her neck; it had finally healed over, although it remained lividly red and still hurt her sometimes. When she and Khan had emerged from their Bonding, everything had changed. Khan had soon released Gabriel from the brig, but the blond man had not said one word to her since, though his stricken eyes spoke volumes. Juno, for her part, had grown gentle toward Molly and rather more distant toward Khan, as if holding him at arm’s length. 

Khan himself had gone very silent, something that chilled Molly to the bone; he still took her to bed regularly, seeming to relax just a little---good, that was as it should be---while he was buried in her body, but in those tense days he had rarely spoken to her unless it was to tell her to strip, or order her to lift her bottom higher for him. 

Now that all the Augments had been awakened, the silence between Khan and herself had finally dispersed, much to Molly’s relief. He seemed uplifted by his crew’s delivery, even joyous; he had taken to chatting at her during their nights in the captain’s quarters, telling her about this or that interesting planetary system they’d surveyed, or of minor scuffles among his increasingly restive crew. Molly never said much in return, but Khan didn’t seem to mind. He’d pull her alongside him on their bed, one hand in her hair and the other protectively on her belly. Molly might have found deep contentment during these times, if only she could forget for a moment that she was lying in the too-powerful arms of her captor, who had shouted at her for speaking to another man, who had broken that man’s bones and would have ended his life without a qualm.

However beautiful and commanding he was, however thrilling his voice in her ear, however delicious he felt moving inside her, in Molly’s heart Khan remained her enemy as well as her Bonded mate, even after all this time. She could never lose sight of that, never let herself lose track of the game pieces moving slowly on the vast board. 

As for those other Augments, they’d seemed to swarm around her as more and more of them were awakened from their long sleep. They were tall, strong, and brilliant, most were breathtakingly charismatic, and all were Alphas to the hilt. But they’d treated her with a deference she had not expected. 

When the entire group gathered in council, no one seated themselves until Molly herself had been seated. She was always first to eat at meals, and Khan served her with his own hands, just as he had done ever since they had met, Molly realized, unless he had been urgently occupied. But now he did so in front of all his crew. 

All the Augments made way for her politely, even when she was walking without Khan, which was seldom enough. One evening, while Khan was closeted with Juno, Gabriel, and a few others, Molly had wandered down to the forward observation lounge, a pleasant space set up for socializing. Every one of the best seats by the vast window had been taken, but one tall man had risen gracefully from his solitary chair and said, “Please, Khatun. You’ll enjoy the view best from here.”

Later, when Molly had asked Khan what the Augment had meant by calling her “Khatun,” he’d smiled as if at some private joke and replied, “It’s the feminine form of my name. It means ‘queen.’” 

“Do...do Alphas treat all Omegas this way?” she’d asked timidly. 

“No,” he told her. “Only my Omega.” And there he’d ended the conversation, turning her on the bed and using his clever mouth until she was coming apart in his hands. 

Khan’s casual mastery of her body both delighted and frustrated Molly, and she could not help speculating about the other Alpha males who teemed around her low seat by Khan’s side. She was careful with her gaze, of course, lest Khan catch her; but the men were all beautiful in their different ways, and Molly often caught herself wondering whether all Alphas were like Khan, rough and commanding when it came to sex. She suspected not; whenever Gabriel appeared in her dreams, as he often did, he was gentle with her. 

She looked to Gabriel now, strapped into his stabilizer seat across from hers, and was shocked to find that he was already staring at her with those hungry black eyes. She glanced away quickly, but Khan had not seen; he was craning his neck toward the windscreen of the shuttle, where scrub plains were rising above shallow green river valleys. 

“Joaquin, set us down on the big island between those two parallel rivers,” Khan ordered, and pointed. “Just there, on the flat place near that large group of trees.” 

And after a few more moments, after Joaquin had set the shuttlecraft down gently on an area of mossy growth, Khan leaped up and cracked open the hatch, and Molly took her first breath of this new world. 

The sunlight was odd, Molly noticed, a little redder than she was used to, especially after months of white light on the deep grays and polished chrome of the _Vengeance._ There was a sharp smell on the air along with the welcome scent of warm earth, and as most of the others surveyed the area with scopes, Molly stood still, trying to place the odor. After a moment, she thought she’d located it; the smell was coming from the grove of tall trees a little way to the east. 

“Khan,” she said quietly. Joaquin was handing out phasers and other equipment to Khan, Gabriel, Kati, and the three others who had come with them, and Molly didn’t let herself look at the phaser Khan was strapping to his belt; that door had long since closed. 

“Yes, Molly?” he answered, not unkindly, though his eyes never stopped scanning the horizon. 

“That tart smell is coming from there.” She pointed, and Khan turned to look. 

“That’s as good a place as any to begin,” he said, with a final tug at the holster. “You others, pair up and spread out. Take scans, get samples, and look out for wildlife. Molly and I will investigate that grove.”

As the others stepped away, Khan took Molly’s hand and drew her down into the shallow valley, where a creek cut its way through sandstone between very tall, slender trees with needle-like leaves. A few snakelike reptilians glided from tree to tree on leathern wings, and Molly caught sight of the shadows of swimming creatures in the deeper pools of the stream. 

As they walked, crushing small, stiff white flowers under their boots, the tart smell grew stronger. Soon Molly spied red globes among the spreading branches of one tree. Following her nose, Molly walked underneath and reached up to pluck one of the soft, red fruits. Khan came up silently next to her, his eyes watchful as Molly sniffed the fruit, then took a small bite. 

She blinked; the fruit was mild-tasting and sweet-sour, but its juice burned a little in her mouth. Carefully, she swallowed, and the burn slid into her stomach. She handed the fruit to Khan and leaned on a low-slung branch, gasping a little when the burn in her stomach did not dissipate. 

“Molly, are you well?” Khan’s hand was firm on her back, and Molly pushed away from the tree and leaned into his grip. 

“I don’t---that may not have been...a good idea,” Molly said, just before dashing behind the tree and vomiting her breakfast into the long grass. She clutched at her round belly; what had the fruit done to her?

Khan said nothing, but offered her the canteen. When Molly had rinsed her mouth and straightened up again, Khan was examining the last bit of the fruit and chewing thoughtfully. 

“Poison,” he said briefly before placing what was left in his mouth and licking his fingers, jerking away when Molly reflexively grabbed at his wrist. 

“My body breaks down nearly all toxins. Yours does not,” Khan told her, gathering up more of the fruit into a small bag. Catching up a small stone, he sent it whizzing up into the tree; there was a crack and a squawk, and one of the small winged snakes fell at Molly’s feet. Seeing the little bashed-in skull and the gray-pink matter splattering onto the green, Molly retched again, remembering against her will a ruined human head...Khan’s bloody hands...

“Come, Molly,” Khan said, picking up the broken little corpse and walking away toward the stream. “Sit and rest for a moment while I spear one of those swimmers.”

Khan snapped off the top half of a slender young tree, then opened his clasp knife and quickly carved off the thin branches, finishing the rough tool by sharpening the end to a point. Squatting gracefully by the deepest pool, Khan lifted the spear to his shoulder and looked down into the depths. 

Molly settled carefully on the grass not far away, and after a moment her nausea dissipated, and she grew calmer. She took a little more water from the canteen and looked at him as he crouched with the spear, so still and watchful. 

Suddenly Khan lunged, throwing the spear deep into the pool, then peering after it. He quickly stripped off his boots and clothing, then slipped naked into the depths. He soon reemerged, streaming with water and looking like some kind of forest god, his black locks falling over his face and his sparse pubic hair dark against that ice-pale skin. 

Spitted on the spear was a wriggling, scum-green horror with too many legs and no eyes that Molly could see. He threw the spear and the creature down on the bank, where it flopped, much to Molly’s distaste. “Feeling better?” he asked her, hands on hips. 

“Much better,” she told him, letting her eyes run freely over his lean body. He smiled. 

“You look rather enticing on the green grass, Molly. Come over here,” he told her, beckoning. “Take me into your mouth, at least until you no longer can.”

Molly crawled to him and knelt to obey, taking his soft cock, still cool from the chill water, into her mouth and pulling on it hungrily. Khan groaned as she rolled and stroked slowly with her tongue. 

“Oh, Molly...your mouth. This feels...so filthy, so perverse,” he said huskily, his hands flexing in her hair.

Molly blinked; Khan’s idea of propriety in sexual matters was something she’d never understand. For all his ferocity, she often wondered whether by his own standards and even those of normal Alphas, Khan was in fact very proper with her. She had no basis for comparison.

As Molly drew on his cock, it soon grew in length and girth until finally she had to give up; she could no longer take it in. Her cheeks were reddening; she had finally gotten used to the sight of it in the months since they’d Bonded, but its size was still a little frightening.

Khan pushed her hands away, then got down next to her and pulled at her clothing until she was as naked as he was. Knowing what he would want next, Molly turned on the soft grass and leaned on her elbows, lifting her bottom.

Behind her, Khan ran his hands possessively over her backside, then dipped his fingers into her wetness. Molly moaned. “Why do you make me want to do such unnatural things with you, my Bond mate? I taste your fluids, of course, and sometimes you need to be punished…But what is the use of your mouth on me?” His cock pushed at her, invaded her, and Molly savored the incredible feeling of fullness deep in her belly.

“Where I come from,” she breathed, “that’s as normal as anything…” 

“Betas,” Khan growled, setting a punishing pace that made Molly groan and cringe. “A world of Betas with their weak little cocks, inventing filthy acts to keep from dying out due to sheer boredom. Don’t think of them, Molly,” Khan said, his hands reaching to hold her round belly. “Think only of me. Only me.” And Molly did, helplessly, as her greatest enemy, her Bonded mate, pushed her to a cruel climax just before releasing his own inside her with a roar. 

Molly jerked her head up at the sound. What if he were heard, and the others came to investigate? But Khan was unconcerned, casting himself down on his back on the grass and pulling her against him. And because she knew he would not let her up, nor could she hope to break free of his powerful arms, Molly lay against him in the reddish sunlight for a time, listening to the wind in the trees and the soft squawks of small animals. 

She did feel a vague nausea growing again, and her skin itched somewhat where it was touching the grass. And now that she thought about it, her mouth had started burning once more, just a little, when she had licked water from the stream off his cock. She’d say something to Khan, later. 

Khan, for his part, was looking up at the dusty-blue sky with great contentment. “This planet seems quite pleasant, Molly, despite the poison fruit,” he said to her. “If we find nothing truly objectionable here, this Ceti Alpha V may well become our new home.”


	9. Judgment

Abashed the Devil stood,  
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw  
Virtue in her shape how lovely.  
—saw, and pined his loss.  
John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

****

Two weeks after they had first landed on the new planet, it was not at all clear whether the Augments were prepared to live with Khan’s decision. 

Molly shivered under the weak light of the two small, knobby moons that orbited Ceti Alpha V. The cold breeze had picked up despite the fact that in these latitudes spring was meant to be turning to summer, and the granite jumble of the large natural amphitheatre retained only a little of the day’s heat. Molly would have been rather miserable if not for the tingle of adrenaline in her veins. Tonight...perhaps tonight. 

Khan was sitting impassively beside her, his hand on her thigh as usual; but at this moment he was pressing her painfully, clearly taking out his tension on her as the towering woman with the mane of black hair---Nanaya, Molly recalled---paced and gesticulated before him. 

“Poison,” she was shouting. “Everything on this planet is poison. The water, the sugars and oils in the plants, and even some animal proteins, and that’s only what we’ve catalogued so far. Khan, we cannot settle here!”

“Your logic escapes me, Nanaya,” Khan said coldly. “We can live and eat here in perfect security. Juno,” he snapped, turning to his other side, where the black-skinned Alpha woman sat on a broken rock as if it were a throne. 

“No Augment we’ve tested has suffered ill effects from any Ceti toxins,” Juno confirmed. “However, no normal humans and very few alien peoples would be able to subsist here.”

“Which is precisely why this planet is perfectly suited to us,” Khan said. “We will build an Augment colony. Our children will be full Augments. We will be left well alone; no explorer who lands on this planet will stay for long after they discover that the very water is laced with ten different natural poisons.”

An angry murmur arose at Khan’s words. A sturdy, golden-skinned man stood and addressed his leader. 

“Khan, I must protest,” he said, his hands curling into fists. “If we settle here, we will not have even the option of finding Omega mates and bringing them back. Our Khatun,” he said, gesturing to Molly, “may have said that she is willing to eat and drink from a replicator for the rest of her life, but that ties her to the colony as well. She can’t even spend more than a few hours outside because of the pollen in the air.”

“You are correct on all counts, Akira,” Khan said. “The very nature of this planet minimizes temptation, focuses all of us on what’s important: breeding a new generation of full Augments. And as I have told you all a hundred times, the Augments’ renewal and resurgence is far more important than gratification of our physical desires.” 

A few Augments shouted, and many more of them surged to their feet. A chorus of angry voices filled the air. 

“All well for you, you have your Omega---”

“I have no interest in breeding with my brothers---”

“Trapping her here with you---”

“And what about your half-Augment child----?”

“Silence,” Khan shouted. “No more talk of my mate. She is my business, and I need not remind you that she will serve an essential purpose to the colony beyond tending to my needs. Her professional capacity---”

“---is unwanted, Khan! I want an Omega mate, an Omega like her! There are still a few out there, you’ve admitted as much, and our Khatun can help us find them!” 

“I said,” Khan growled, his eyes cold, “silence.”

The group of Augments settled and took their seats again, but there were still mutterings and clenched fists, and the air crackled with a tension that was growing hot, desperate, dangerous. Molly shifted on the little pillow that had been provided for her alone, and looked over at Khan’s face. Did he not sense it?

Khan seemed to feel himself perfectly in control; he raised his dark head proudly. “If there are any real objections to settling on Ceti Alpha V beyond the toxins, let me hear them now.”

“Khan,” said Kati, the dark-haired woman who had studied geophysics and astrophysics in order to help survey the systems, at Khan’s behest. “I simply must raise again the concern I brought before your privy council. You dismissed me then, but all must know.”She turned to the group, ignoring Khan as he rose slowly behind her with a closed fist. 

“Fellow Augments, I have grave concerns regarding the close orbit of the nearby rocky planet, Ceti Alpha VI, to the gas giant Ceti Alpha VII. Gravitational stress on the sixth planet is immense, and seismic activity has already melted its core. This system is geologically unstable---”

“Kati,” Khan said, his voice rising. “I forbade you to share that information for the simple reason that it is trivial. That geologic process has been occurring for hundreds of millions of years. The risk that there will be an event that affects this planet is infinitesimal, even over the course of our lifetimes and those of our children. Kati, you deeply disappoint me. Sit down.”

“I will not,” Kati retorted, standing her ground and facing him. “The threat is real and present.”

“Are you challenging me, Kati?” Khan’s voice held a note of disbelief. “You must know that you will lose.”

Kati said nothing, but Molly saw her hand give a small wave at her side. Then Augments all around them were getting to their feet, climbing down the rocks, and forming a wide circle around Khan and Kati, stopping just behind the place where Juno and Molly were still sitting. 

Molly’s heart started to race. She looked over at Juno, who gave her a solemn nod and turned away. And Molly shook with anxiety as Kati stepped slowly backward to join the circle, leaving Khan standing alone. 

Khan gave a grim laugh. “What is this? You would like me to fight each one of you in turn? I am ready. I can defeat any and all challengers in any fight, physical or intellectual, that you care to bring. You all know this well. I am first among you. I have been first since the beginning.”

Then, from somewhere in the back of the group, a voice called out. “We Augments could go anywhere, do anything, if not for you!”

Khan’s teeth flashed. “Who said that? Otto? Pietr? Step forward!”

“We are united in this, Khan,” said Carlo, the man who had offered Molly his seat in the observation lounge. “You may have saved our lives, but you killed thousands to do it.”

“Your methods were messy, rooted in revenge. And the enemies you well earned could not be any more powerful,” said a woman Molly didn’t know. 

“You are a fugitive from the Federation and all their allies,” flame-haired Yonotan said. “You are the reason we ran here to the end of space. You are the reason we are hunted.” 

“If not for you, Khan, we could return,” said Joaquin. “We could live free. Rejoin civilization, find Omega mates who would welcome us. Abandon schemes of revenge against enemies who have been dead for centuries.”

Khan stood in reptilian stillness as his fellow Augments spoke. Then, slowly, he turned his long neck and spoke one word. “Juno.”

“Yes, Khan,” Juno said, rising from her seat. She jumped to the sandy ground and drew close to her leader’s side. “I said all this to you before, my brother. Many times. I asked you to leave us, to seek your own way and let us live free of your crimes. And when you did not heed me, I began to speak with all our fellow Augments. Khan, you should have listened better.”

“I could say the same, sister-in-heart,” he said, and for the first time, he seemed shaken. “You cannot imagine what it was like for me to be awoken alone in this century, under the thumb of Starfleet. How I was humiliated, forced into the service of a war I never asked for, my grief still fresh in my heart and all of your lives hanging in the balance.” 

“We could have waited, Khan. For a better chance,” Juno said. “You let that year change you, tear you apart, and you acted in ways unbefitting to an Augment. I saw it in your face the moment you woke me: you’ve lost your way, dear one. We trusted you to awaken us to a better future than this.”

Khan’s mouth clenched in anger, and he stepped back away from Juno and turned to address the group. “The Federation is no friend to Augments, and never will be,” he told the rows of closed faces. “And I am still your leader, by all our oldest laws.”

Molly had been watching numbly, but she jumped and nearly screamed to feel a touch on her shoulder. She turned her head wildly, and there was Gabriel, crouched behind her back, putting his arms around her. Molly trembled; seeing Gabriel’s hands on her would surely enrage Khan, if he were to see.

“I’ll protect you, Molly,” Gabriel said. “No matter what happens.” 

Molly’s mind raced back to the last time Gabriel had spoken to her, months ago in the secluded corridor of the ship, and his crucial words---- 

“We Augments still follow the ancient traditions,” he had told her, touching her face. “We can take Khan down, Molly, but you will have to be brave, very brave and strong. Listen to me, Molly. This is our key. By the laws, the Alpha leader holds power by virtue of merit, but special power to judge the merit of the leader is held by---”

“Molly,” Juno said, turning toward her. “Let us hear what our Khatun has to say on the matter.”

Khan flinched and turned toward Molly. His face was contorted with fury to see Gabriel touching his mate, but more than that, he had gone utterly white.

“Stand now, Molly,” Gabriel said in a low voice. He stepped around her, putting his body between Molly and Khan, and took her hand. Molly leaned on it and got to her feet somehow, her other hand cradling her great belly. Gently, she pushed Gabriel aside, and he nodded once and stepped back.

“Khan,” she said, trembling to her very bones, but lifting her chin. He looked back at her, those icy eyes lit up with---something---

She made herself hold his gaze, gave a hard swallow, and spoke. 

“You abducted me from the _Enterprise_ before you destroyed it. You took me away from everything and everyone I’d known, my whole life. I hid from you; you hunted me,” she said. Her voice gathered strength as she continued.

“When you discovered I was an Omega, you took away my medication to force me into heat, so that I would come to you. You mated with me, then you forced me to kill innocent people. You made me pregnant, and claimed me as your own. And to keep others away, you decided that we would Bond. And after all this, after everything, you expected me to love you. Khan, you never once realized the depths of your cruelty to me.”

He was looking at her in silent disbelief, his eyes so sad, so lost. He truly loved her, Molly realized, seeing the immense loss in every line of his beautiful, beautiful face. 

And she loved him. She knew it now. Her kidnapper, her lover, her tormenter, her protector. Father of her child. But still, without question or hesitation, she would bring him down. Check and mate.

“I reject you, Khan,” she said quietly into the great silence. “You are not fit to be my mate. And thus, by the ancient laws, you are not fit to lead. Juno,” she called to the tall woman who stood nearby, “take him.”

Khan was still, unresisting, as Juno stepped up beside him and laid a hand tenderly on his cheek. Turning his head a little, she laid a soft kiss on his mouth, and Khan’s eyes closed and his brow knitted as he leaned his forehead against Juno’s for a moment. Then he turned and looked at Molly again, filling his eyes with her. 

“Well done, my Molly,” he said quietly, that smooth, deep voice thrilling her for the last time. “Once more…always...I underestimated you. Your great courage, the strength of your will. So now, as ever, I am honored to die at your hands.” 

And Molly made herself watch as a long steel blade appeared in Juno’s hand. Wrapping one arm gently around his broad shoulders, Juno slipped the knife gently, deeply, through Khan’s throat. And as the light left his eyes and his body sagged to the earth, Molly’s heart broke in two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue follows.


	10. Epilogue

Freely we serve,  
Because we freely love, as in our will  
To love or not; in this we stand or fall.  
John Milton, _Paradise Lost_

****

A year later, Molly stepped out of the dimness of her sturdy hut, shading her eyes against the sun with her free hand. This new planet where the Augment colony had relocated was warm and a little arid, and so Molly wore the long, light, draped clothing that helped keep her cool during the heat of the day. She didn’t mind at all, for on this planet she could eat her fill of the native sweet-tasting roots and delicious orange berries, and drink the cool, clean water that rushed forth from the many wells they’d created to irrigate their garden plots and fields of grain. 

The village had grown so much in such a short time; there were perhaps fifty huts like hers gathered at the edge of a low scrub forest near the bottom of a fertile river valley. Some of the huts were empty, their occupants departed on the latest run of the _Vengeance_ to the nearest outpost, from there to seek other transport and find Omega mates in the far-flung colonies of humans. Some, she suspected, would never return. But the Augments’ colony was open to all who wished to come or go, so that was as it should be. They’d hold no one against their will. But somehow, Molly had no wish to leave the colony, at least not yet. 

They called her by her own name now, the Augments, and looked to Juno’s leadership. And since Juno still had no mate, Molly sat beside her in council, in her old place. But now she spoke freely, and was heard; after her ordeal, it seemed that the Augments held her in some awe. 

Neither did she lack for interesting opportunities to flex her professional muscle. Not ten minutes ago, Molly had received a message that the hunting parties had finally managed to capture one of the immense tusked mammals that wallowed in the wide, shallow lakes of this world. Out of sheer fascination with all the strange life they had encountered, she had begun to study xenogenetics, and she wanted to be among the first to examine the blood and tissue of the great beast. Perhaps, very likely, it would be edible. Palatable...well, that remained to be seen. 

Molly hoped that more resources would soon be available to the colony; two of the Augments had set out to make the long journey back to Federation space. They hoped to create peaceful relations by bringing news of the fate of Starfleet’s missing ship, the Augment colony, and, of course, Khan’s death. Thinking of it again, Molly gave a sigh.

They had buried Khan on Ceti Alpha V, the planet where he’d died, with all ceremony. Molly remembered little of the terrible time just after his death. Broken by a blood-deep sorrow for her Bonded mate but bitterly denying the fact of her grief, she had spent those days lost in a black pit of her own mind, hardly aware of her surroundings. She remained grateful to Juno for her quiet empathy; for truly, no one had understood Molly’s storm of emotion better than Khan’s sister, his executioner. 

The Augments had placed an immense stone over the spot, then carved his grave marker with phasers. She’d thought it would stand forever, but five months after they had left the Ceti Alpha system far behind them, the gas giant had finally torn apart the neighboring planet and the orbit of Ceti Alpha V had shifted catastrophically. Molly had wept to hear that Khan’s gravesite would now have been buried by drifting sand, the great marker surely being scoured down by hot, howling winds. And even though she knew with a scientist’s clarity that no ghost or soul remained of her mate, some primitive part of her wished that she had taken something from his beautiful, still body, perhaps cut some lock of hair to keep with her, so that Khan would not be utterly alone in eternity. 

But she had kept something, Molly reminded herself, looking down at the warm, black-haired creature who cuddled against her breast, peering sleepily up at her mother through slanted eyes that were as brown as her own. A comfort, that eye color; Molly found it reassuring that at least some of her own genes had won out over his.

“How is she?” Molly heard, and looked up at Gabriel, who was leaning out of his own hut and smiling rather shyly at them. 

“She’s very well today,” Molly replied fondly. “She loves the toy starship you made her. Can’t keep it out of her mouth, of course,” and Gabriel laughed.

“And how are you, Molly?” he asked carefully, taking a step forward but keeping a respectful distance. 

“I’m...doing much better, lately,” she told him, stepping a little closer herself. He smelled nice, like sun-warmed stone, ocean wind, freshly carved wood... 

“I’m glad,” Gabriel said. He peered down into Molly’s bundle. “She’s so beautiful, Molly. Ah, her scent is much like her father’s.” 

“So is mine,” Molly replied softly. Her hand went to the well-healed bite on her neck. 

“Yes,” Gabriel replied. “And much all your own, of course. It’s a good scent. I did love Khan very much, Molly.” He smiled, a little sadly. 

“Yes.” Molly reached out and took Gabriel’s hand, and looked into his black eyes, still so full of hunger as he searched her face. “Gabriel...would you like to walk with me to the lake? Perhaps hold Adalet while I take samples?”

“I’d like that very much,” he said quietly. “Can I take her now?”

She passed over the warm, sleeping bundle, and Gabriel cradled the baby carefully against his chest. Molly liked the look of it. And together, the three of them started down the path.

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By popular demand, this tale now has a chaser to help wash away your sadness, because I love my readers. _From Darkness to Promote Me: Redemption_ is now posted among my other works. Please enjoy!

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to my betas, liathwen and onedayer, and to MizJoely who launched this Khanolly ship and provided encouragement at a crucial moment.


End file.
